Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World: Provincial Cosmopolitans [ebook ed.] 1409465888, 9781409465898, 9781315611648

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction
2 Where in the World was Sweden? A Brief Guide for Foreigners
Language
3 The Language of Cosmos: The Cosmopolitan Endeavour of Universal Languages
Cultivation
4 Swedish Agriculture in the Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century
Taste
5 Travelling and the Formation of Taste: The European Journey of Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure 1758–1763
Liberty
6 Eskilstuna Fristad: The Beginnings of an Urban Experiment
Image
7 Prints and Attraction in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm
Faith
8 In Defence of Freedom: Christianity and the Pursuit of Human Happiness in Anders Chydenius’ World
Peace
9 Sweden’s Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System
Colour
10 Runaway Colours: Recognisability and Categorisation in Sweden and Early America, 1750–1820
Manners
11 When Sweden Harboured Idlers: Gender and Luxury in Public Debates, c. 1760–1830
Slavery
12 A Divided Space: Subjects and Others in the Swedish West Indies during the late-Eighteenth Century
Compassion
13 A World of Fiction: Bengt Lidner and Global Compassion in Eighteenth-Century Sweden
14 Sveaborg and the End of the Swedish Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century: An Epilogue
Select Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

SWEDEN IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WORLD

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Sweden in the EighteenthCentury World Provincial Cosmopolitans

Edited by GÖRAN RYDÉN Uppsala University, Sweden

First published 2013 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Göran Rydén 2013 Göran Rydén has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Sweden in the eighteenth-century world : provincial cosmopolitans. 1. Sweden--History--1718-1814. 2. Sweden-Foreign relations--1718-1814. 3. Sweden--Commerce--History-18th century. I. Ryden, Goran. 948.5'036-dc23 The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Sweden in the eighteenth-century world : provincial cosmopolitans / edited by Göran Rydén. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4094-6588-1 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-6589-8 (ebook)-ISBN 978-1-4094-6590-4 (ePUB) 1. Sweden--Civilization--18th century. 2. Sweden­ -Social life and customs--18th century. 3. Cosmopolitanism--Sweden--History--18th century. I. Rydén, Göran. DL749.S94 2013 948.5'036--dc23 2012045461 ISBN 978-1-409-46588-1 (hbk) ISBN 978-1-315-61164-8 (ebk)

Contents List of Figures   Notes on Contributors   Acknowledgements   1

Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction    Göran Rydén

2

Where in the World was Sweden? A Brief Guide for Foreigners   Chris Evans

vii ix xiii 1 33

Language 3

The Language of Cosmos: The Cosmopolitan Endeavour of Universal Languages   David Dunér

41

Cultivation 4

Swedish Agriculture in the Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century   Mats Morell

69

Taste 5

Travelling and the Formation of Taste: The European Journey of Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure 1758–1763   Lars Berglund

95

Liberty 6 Eskilstuna Fristad: The Beginnings of an Urban Experiment   Göran Rydén

123

Image 7

Prints and Attraction in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm   Sonya Petersson

147

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World

vi

Faith 8

In Defence of Freedom: Christianity and the Pursuit of Human Happiness in Anders Chydenius’ World   Carola Nordbäck

177

Peace 9

Sweden’s Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System   Leos Müller

203

Colour 10

Runaway Colours: Recognisability and Categorisation in Sweden and Early America, 1750–1820   Karin Sennefelt

225

Manners 11

When Sweden Harboured Idlers: Gender and Luxury in Public Debates, c. 1760–1830   Karin Hassan Jansson

249

Slavery 12

A Divided Space: Subjects and Others in the Swedish West Indies during the late-Eighteenth Century   Holger Weiss

275

Compassion 13 14

A World of Fiction: Bengt Lidner and Global Compassion in Eighteenth-Century Sweden   Anna Cullhed

301

Sveaborg and the End of the Swedish Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century: An Epilogue   Göran Rydén and Holger Weiss

325

Select Bibliography   Index  

335 345

List of Figures 1.1 Leufsta bruk, 1769   1.2 ‘Hela Iordkretzens afritning’, unknown Swedish world map from the eighteenth century  

20

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

A Saami with his drum   El, a swinging ball under water or a turning planet in the ether   Table of universal characters   Polhem’s mechanical alphabet   Polhem’s mechanical alphabet  

42 56 57 60 61

4.1

Model drawings of two Northern Swedish Threshing wagons, a double conic threshing roller and two threshing barns   Detail of map of Uppsala, 1770  

80 89

4.2

5

5.2 5.3

Detail from the frontispiece of Leones Méthode raissonée, depicting a female mandolin player   Title page of Giovanni Battista Gervasio’s sonata in G   The beginning of Gervasio’s sonata  

114 115 116

6.1 6.2

The metal-ware forge at Gustafsfors, 1758   Eskilstuna ‘Fristad’, in 1771  

135 143

7.1

Portrait of Sofia Magdalena, by Jacob Gillberg, after Lorens Pasch the younger   Portrait of Sofia Magdalena, by Fredrik Akrel   Blueprint and elevation of the nuptials of Adolf Fredrik 1771, by Per Floding   Emblems and provincial weapons in the Gustavian chapel during Adolf Fredrik’s nuptials 1771   The chamber of Georg Diedrich Heimberger, by Carl Wilhelm Swedman, around 1790   Le Jardinier gallant, by Isidore-Stanislas Helman   L’Amour frivole, by Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet, after François Boucher  

5.1

7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 8.1

Portrait of Anders Chydenius, by the Swedish painter Per Fjällström, 1770  

151 152 156 157 162 169 170 179

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9.1 9.2

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World

The Benefit of Neutrality, an engraving from 1745   Den Britsen Leopard tot reden gebracht (The British Leopard Brought to Reason), Dutch engraving from 1780  

10.1 A peasant woman from the hundred of Bjäre in southern Sweden wearing a pink scarf and blue jacket, skirt and apron. Pink was a colour not mentioned in Swedish runaway ads.   11.1 A drawing on the theme of the henpecked husband by Carl August Ehrensvärd in 1795   11.2 A drawing on the negative female stereotype not only spending all her husband’s money, but also cheating on him, by Carl August Ehrensvärd in 1795  

206 217

242 257 260

12.1 Plan of Gustavia, c. 1799/1800   12.2 View over Gustavia, c. 1793  

282 292

13.1 Portrait of Bengt Lidner, coloured engraving by Anton Ulrik Berndes (1757–1844)   13.2 Medea   13.3 Yttersta Domen, by Johan Fredrik Martin (1755–1816)  

302 318 321

14.1 Sveaborg in Finland, tinted drawing by Elias Martin  

329

Notes on Contributors Lars Berglund is Associate Professor and Chair at the Department of Musicology, Uppsala University. Specialising in the early-modern period, he has published studies on music and musical cultures in Northern Europe and on music in seventeenth-century Rome, with a combined focus on culture history, pre-modern aesthetics and music analysis. He has also worked on Swedish art music and aesthetic debates during the 1950s and 1960s. Anna Cullhed is Associate Professor in Literature at the Department of Culture and Communication (IKK), Linköping University. Her research interests include European poetics from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, sentimental literature and the history of emotions. Her publications include a monograph of Bengt Lidner (2011, in Swedish) and studies on the poetics of Robert Lowth, J.J. Eschenburg and A.W. Schlegel. David Dunér is Professor of History of Science and Ideas at Lund University, Sweden and researcher at the Centre for Cognitive Semiotics, Lund University, Sweden. His research concerns seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science, medicine and technology, and the cognitive processes behind scientific and philosophical reasoning. Recently he published the monograph The Natural Philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Study in the Conceptual Metaphors of the Mechanistic World-View (Springer, 2013). Chris Evans is Professor of History at the University of Glamorgan, Wales. His research interest lies in the intersection of industrial and colonial history. Among his most recent publications are Slave Wales. The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery 1660–1850 (2010) and ‘The Plantation Hoe: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Commodity, 1650–1850’, William and Mary Quarterly, third ser., 69, no. 1, January 2012. Karin Hassan Jansson is Associate Professor of History at Uppsala University. Her main research interest is gender in early-modern Sweden. She has written about conceptions of rape, and the relation between notions on violence, sexuality, gender and state formation. She is currently focusing on the discussions of marriage, economy and gender in political discourses. Mats Morell is Professor of Economic History at Stockholm University. His research focuses on Swedish, Scandinavian and European rural history in the early-

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modern era and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Together with Janken Myrdal he edited and contributed to The Agrarian History of Sweden 4000 bc to ad 2000 (2011). His recent publications also include ‘Subsistence crises during the ancient and nouveau régime in Sweden: An interpretative review’, Histoire & Mesure, Vol. XXVI (2011). Leos Müller is Professor of History and the Director of the Centre for Maritime Studies, Stockholm University. His research interests include Sweden’s seaborne trade and shipping in the early-modern period, the Swedish East India Company, neutrality in a maritime context, maritime international order and small states. His recent books are Consuls, Corsairs and Commerce. The Swedish Consular Service and Long-Distance Shipping, 1720–1815 (2004), and, together with Göran Rydén and Holger Weiss, Global historia från periferin. Norden 1600–1850 (2010). Carola Nordbäck is Associate Professor in Church History at the Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious studies at Umeå University. Her research centres on Lutheran history and theology, historiography, historical consciousness, philosophy of history and religious use of history. Her publications include two monographs about the shifting religious conditions in Sweden and Finland during the eighteenth century. Sonya Petersson is a PhD student in Art History at the Department of Art History, Stockholm University. Her research is focused on eighteenth-century processes of cultural transfer in the popular field of art. She is currently working on her forthcoming doctoral thesis, Art in Popular Circulation: Knowledge, Media and Market in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm (2014). Göran Rydén is Professor in Economic History at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University. His research centres on different aspects of the Swedish eighteenth century from a global perspective. His publications include Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World (2007), written together with Chris Evans, and ‘Viewing and Walking. Swedish Visitors to Eighteenth-Century London’, Journal of Urban History, 39 (2), 2013. Karin Sennefelt is Associate Professor at the Department of History at Stockholm University. She works on the intersections of political, cultural and social history in early-modern Sweden. Previous publications have appeared in Social History, Urban History and Past & Present. She has written on political sociability and place and is currently researching social practices of identification and social distinction in the long eighteenth century. Holger Weiss is Professor of General History at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. His research focuses on eighteenth- and early twentieth-century global history, including Danish-African spaces in West Africa and Swedish slavery in the

Notes on Contributors

xi

Caribbean, as well as radical international solidarity movements and actors during the interwar period and environmental history. His publications include Between Accommodation and Revivalism: Muslims, the State and Society in Ghana from the Precolonial to the Postcolonial Era (2008), and Atlantiska religiösa nätverk. Transoceana kontakter, trossamfund och den enskilda individen i skuggan av slavhandeln (ed., 2010).

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Acknowledgements This book is the result of a project that started in 2010. We were 12 eighteenthcentury scholars who met to discuss the cosmopolitan eighteenth-century Sweden. It was a group that included historians, economic historians, a religious historian, historians of science and ideas, an art historian, a historian of literature and a music historian. We met during three intense workshops, to discuss preliminary texts. Our first workshop took place at Leufsta bruk in June 2010, followed by a second meeting in Uppsala in March 2011. The third workshop was held at Sveaborg, outside Helsinki, in June 2011. These meetings were made possible by funding from Vetenskapsrådet (The Swedish Research Council), in Sweden, and Åbo Akademis Jubileumsfond 1968, a fund for research exchange between Sweden and Åbo Akademi, in Finland. I want to especially thank Holger Weiss, for both arranging the workshop at Sveaborg and for finding the necessary funds. At Sveaborg we had invited three eighteenth-century colleagues to give an outside perspective on the texts we had been working on since the beginning of the project. I want to thank Marie-Christine Skuncke, Karel Davids and Chris Evans for their important contributions. It is fair to say that their input gave us an incentive to rework our texts, and hopefully they have been improved since. Chris also volunteered to write a short introduction to the Swedish eighteenth century, for foreigners, which is included in the book. It is also more than appropriate to point to the inspiration we all have been given by regularly attending MarieChristine Skuncke’s interdisciplinary eighteenth-century seminar organised at Uppsala University for more than 15 years. During the publication process the people at Ashgate, and especially Emily Yates and Aimée Feenan, have been most helpful and generous. They found two good anonymous referees who read the whole manuscript and gave both good criticism and valuable advice for the remaining process. We can only hope that we have lived up to what they wanted us to do. David Jones translated the chapter by Carola Nordbäck, and corrected the language in another chapter. The extended quotations from Chydenius’s original manuscripts in Nordbäck’s chapter were translated by Peter C. Hogg. We have also received generous funding from Wilhelm Ekmans universitetsfond, at Uppsala University Library, enabling us to publish more illustrations as well as printing many of them in colour.

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Lastly, I want to thank here all the participants in this project, including Hjalmar Fors, who took part in all three workshops. Seldom have I had the opportunity to collaborate with such a nice, generous and gifted group of scholars. It is with gratitude I remember the workshops we shared. Göran Rydén Uppsala, April 2013

Chapter 1

Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction Göran Rydén

A Cosmopolitan Library – A Point of Departure In 1739, Charles De Geer arrived at Leufsta bruk, Sweden’s largest ironworks, some 100 kilometres north of Stockholm, as its new owner. Iron making in Sweden was organised in bruks, which were a kind of combination of an industrial community where the iron production took place in furnaces and forges, and a large landed estate, supplying charcoal and other resources from the land. Access to mines was sometimes included. Charles De Geer had inherited Leufsta bruk nine years earlier from an uncle bearing the same name, but at that time the new heir still lived with his parents on an estate outside Utrecht in the Netherlands; Charles was just 10 years old when he came into possession of Leufsta, and he remained in Holland until his father’s death in 1738. Although Charles De Geer was brought up in Holland he had been born in Sweden, and though he bore a Dutch name his family had been present in Sweden for about a century. His great grandfather was Louis De Geer, who had arrived in Sweden as a wealthy merchant from Amsterdam, although initially from Wallonia, and came to have a large impact on Swedish economic performance in general, but more specifically on its iron industry. Louis De Geer soon came into the possession of Leufsta bruk, as well as other large iron-making estates in the county of Uppland, and it remained in the family’s hands until very recently. Owning Leufsta also meant control of the Dannemora mine, one of the richest deposits of iron ore in Europe.1 It was thus a cosmopolitan young man who arrived at Leufsta in 1739; he belonged to a dynasty of merchants who recognised no borders and he had already, by 19 years of age, crossed many boundaries, linguistic and others. He made notes in his personal account book in Dutch, but soon began to write letters in Swedish, and was to compose scientific books about insects in French. Charles De Geer brought this cosmopolitanism with him to Leufsta, which developed during his long reign into a kind of ‘micro’ cosmopolitan society. A century before, Louis   For an introduction to the organisation of the Swedish iron industry, see Karl-Gustaf Hildebrand, Swedish Iron in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Export Industry before the Industrialization, Stockholm 1992, and Chris Evans and Göran Rydén, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century, Leiden 2007, pp. 71–92. 1

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World

2

De Geer had brought skilled workers from his native Wallonia with him, as well as both Dutch capital and new technologies for both furnaces and forges. The younger De Geer built on that foundation, establishing the iron from Leufsta as a top brand on the European iron market, but he also added a European cultural touch to his community. Charles De Geer was quick to introduce novelties from Europe, and in the late 1750s he approached the young architect Jean Eric Rehn, who was to have a leading role in introducing rococo to Sweden, when he returned from a long journey in Italy and France. He was to refurbish the grand manor house and other buildings at Leufsta. However, culture was more than architecture to the new heir at Leufsta. When Charles De Geer returned to the country of his birth, the bruk was run by his older brother as guardian, and a Directeur at the site. The latter, Eric Touscher, had prepared for the arrival of his new superior by penning a very ambitious guide for a future ironmaster, En liten handbok angående Leufsta Bruk &c. Wälborne Herren Herr Carl de Geer, wid ankomsten i Orten af En Des Tienare, öfwerlemnat 1739, bound into a small leather-covered book. In this ‘small handbook’, Touscher touched upon most aspects of being the manager of a large industrial enterprise operating in a global market; he began by dealing with the personnel, moving to matters of transport, technology and workshops before treating the more businessrelated matters. Touscher ended his manuscript with a small chapter called ‘Some necessary and well-meant reminders’. Whether De Geer heeded Touscher’s advice is not clear, but he turned out to be a very successful ironmaster, and died as a very rich man in 1778.2 However, Touscher’s ‘well-meant reminders’ did not stop with matters related to being an ironmaster. He had also prepared a second handwritten leathercovered volume for his master, related to cultural aspects of being a gentleman of the time: ‘Catalogue over Charles De Geer’s collections at Leufsta’.3 Touscher had, at his own expense, collected coins and medals for his master; he had also bought books, as well as scientific instruments, guns and machines. All these items were catalogued, and they were stored in cupboards, drawers and rooms. The idea behind all this was to prepare De Geer for a social life as an owner of a large and well-reputed Swedish bruk; being a collector was an important part of that. If Touscher wanted to implant the art of collecting in the mind of his new young master he definitely succeeded, and Charles De Geer can in many ways be seen as a personification of eighteenth-century collecting. The armoury, the library and the cupboards that Touscher presented along with his little book really expanded with the new owner, becoming redecorated wings of his manor house, and in the hands   En liten handbok angående Leufsta Bruk &c. Wälborne Herren Herr Carl de Geer, wid ankomsten i Orten af En Des Tienare, öfwerlemnat 1739, Leufstaarkivet, kartong 152, Riksarkivet, Stockholm. 3   Touscher, ‘Katalog öfver Carl De Geers samlingar på Leufsta’, 1739, in Top. O. Hist. Samlingar, Typotius, Vol. 29. ATA: A** Topografiska Arkivet. Vitterhetsakademins handskriftssamling. Riksantikvarieämbetets arkiv och bibliotek, Stockholm. 2

Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction

3

of Jean Eric Rehn De Geer got a fashionable and purpose-built natural history cabinet (a room for displaying a collection) as well as a library. That the natural history cabinet came to include a large collection of minerals is hardly strange, bearing in mind that De Geer generated his wealth from the mineral kingdom, and that a knowledge of different kinds of ore ought to have been within the bounds of his ‘useful knowledge’. However, the new master of Leufsta bruk has been more remembered by posterity for the other collection in the same cabinet: the assembly of insects in boxes ordered, more or less, according to the ‘systema naturae’ established by his fellow countryman, Linnaeus. De Geer became a naturalist of almost the same prominence as the great professor from Uppsala, but his Memoires pour server a L’Histoire des Insectes, published in seven volumes from 1752 to 1778, actually bears the same title as a work by another famous naturalist, the French René Antoine de Réamur.4 The southern wing of the house, situated alongside the lower works pond, was mirrored on the northern side of the house with an equally well-designed building, but this did not include any natural specimens, being filled instead with printed materials; this was Charles De Geer’s treasured library. On its purpose-built shelves he stored music sheets purchased from Amsterdam and the most recent engravings from Paris. De Geer was an accomplished harpsichordist and, with manuscripts sent to him, he could, together with family and friends, perform the music in vogue in Europe at the time; his collection included music by Händel and Vivaldi, but also by less well-known masters such as Schaffrath, Pepusch and Tartini.5 The master of Leufsta could with equal ease keep abreast of what was going on in the art scene of the French capital, with engravings sent to him – his collection included works by masters such as Watteau and Boucher.6 The collection of books, however, dwarfed the assembled music sheets and engravings, and was at least as cosmopolitan! There were books in Swedish, especially related to the iron industry, but De Geer had almost a full collection of works from the French Enlightenment, with authors like Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau to the fore, and the shelves were equally filled with books by naturalists such as Réamur and Buffon. Last but not least, the Leufsta master possessed the most important work of them all, the Encyclopédie, published under the editorship of d’Alembert and Diderot.7 4   Thomas Totti, Ädle of Höglärde H. Archiater. Om Charles De Geer och hans brevväxling med Carl von Linné, Uppsala 2007; also Sten Lindroth, Svensk Lärdomshistoria. 3, Frihetstiden, Stockholm 1978, p. 272. 5   The Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble has recorded two CDs with music from this collection: The Musical Treasures of Leufsta Bruk, BIS 1526, 2005, and BIS 1975, 2011, Stockholm. 6   Katalog öfver Leufsta fideikommiss’ gravyrsamling upprättad af Osvald Sirén, Stockholm 1907. 7   E.G. Liljebjörn, Katalog öfver Leufsta bruks gamla fideikommissbibliotek, Uppsala 1907. See also Tomas Anfält, ‘Bad Books and Barons. French Underground Literature in

4

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World

Leufsta was Sweden’s largest and most prominent bruk, but it was a community challenging what could be said to be Swedish. For a start, it was a community largely inhabited by descendants of skilled workers who had migrated from the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, still working the iron in furnaces and forges according to technology brought from their native Wallonia. It was also a community that, from an architectural perspective, bore a significant resemblance to developments in the rest of Europe, but foremost it was a community totally in the hands of the De Geer family. The new owner, Charles De Geer, invigorated the ties to the Dutch economy, as well as establishing iron from Leufsta in the top tier of the European iron market. The profits from dealings in this market enabled De Geer to live his cosmopolitan life in his redecorated manor house, with his natural history cabinet and his library. In a symbolic way, we can imagine the Leufsta master entering his library and taking a volume of the Encyclopédie from his shelves. If he had chosen the fourth volume, with plates, from 1765, he could have viewed the plan and drawings of a French forge which was adopted for the Walloon method.8 Had he raised his head from the book and looked out of the window, he could have seen one of his own forges using the same technology. Leufsta was an iron-making bruk in Sweden, but it was also an unmistakably cosmopolitan place, crossing all kinds of boundaries. As a bruk, Leufsta was a ‘material’ space, sending out bar iron all over Europe, but it was also a ‘mental’ space, where Charles De Geer in his library could sit and imagine many different places scattered around the globe. As such it was a truly cosmopolitan place, situating Sweden within the material world as well as the mental world! The eighteenth-century library at Leufsta bruk remains more or less intact. Its yellow plastered walls can still be seen in mirror image in the works pond, and its purpose-built shelves still contain the books Charles De Geer purchased from booksellers on the European continent. The building, the manor house, the natural history cabinet and some other houses are now owned by the Swedish state, while the books now belong to Uppsala University Library. It is open to the public, and shelf after shelf of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon and Rousseau can still be viewed. We are not allowed to take the volumes from the shelves ourselves, but with help from guides or librarians we can view the drawings of a French forge in the Encyclopédie. Sadly, we cannot see the Leufsta forges any more, as they have been demolished, but Leufsta bruk is still one of the primary places to view the Swedish eighteenth century in all its cosmopolitan flair!

a Swedish 18th Century Private Library’, in ‘Serving the Scholarly Community. Essays on Tradition and Change in Research Libraries Presented to Thomas Totti on July 3rd, 1995’, Acta Bibliothecae Universitatis Upsaliensis, Vol. XXXIII, 1995, pp. 271–279. 8   Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers. Recueil de Planches, sur les Arts Méchaniques, avec Leur Explication. Troisieme Livraison, Denis Diderot, ed., Paris 1765. The Encyclopédie is accessible in electronic form. See http://www.lexilogos.com/encyclopedie_diderot_alembert.htm, accessed 27 March 2013.

Provincial Cosmopolitanism: An Introduction

Figure 1.1

5

Leufsta bruk, 1769

Note: The Library is the small building to the right of the manor house, by the pond, and the natural history cabinet is the mirror image to the left. Source: ‘Dagbok öfwer en resa igenom åtskillige av Rikets Landskaper …’ by Adolf Fredrik Barnekow and Emanuel De Geer. Courtesy of Uppsala University Library and Stora Wäsby gårdsarkiv.

The aim of this book is to view the Swedish eighteenth century from a cosmopolitan perspective, and there is hardly a better place to start such a venture than at Leufsta bruk, with its library. The place can be understood as one local community reaching out to a much wider global setting, with its bar iron being sold all around the Atlantic Ocean, as well as a place consuming commodities and culture from other (global) places, but its library can also be viewed as a kind of global microcosm; within its yellow plaster walls knowledge about the world was collected, and stored on shelves designed by Jean Eric Rehn. For eighteenth-century intellectuals, the Encyplopédie stood as a proxy for the ‘totality of knowledge’, and in order to fully understand the eighteenth century we must try to embrace such a way of thinking.9 Our (academic) world of today is far   For a critical discussion about the Encyplopédie and its ‘tree of knowledge’, see Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, New York 1984; Richard Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions. Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture, Cambridge 2001. 9

Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World

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more divided and structured along different disciplinary, as well as political, boundaries. These have to be removed. This book began as a workshop held at the bruk, including a visit to the library, with Swedish eighteenth-century scholars from different disciplines; we came from history, economic history, the history of ideas, the history of religion, literature, musicology and art. Our point of departure was to merge our different disciplinary backgrounds and in doing so create a more nuanced and elaborated picture of the Swedish cosmopolitan eighteenth century; the ambition was to strive for a picture more like the one imagined by the eighteenth-century intellectuals. The disciplinary differences were not, however, to be abandoned altogether, as each of us was asked to write a chapter based on prior themes and knowledge; we have remained attached to features close to our own disciplines. Instead, this more unified picture was to be found in the angles we adopted while writing our texts. We started from a spatial understanding of the Swedish eighteenth century, whereby Sweden is inserted in a wider global and cosmopolitan framework, and how such a setting might have influenced Sweden’s development. A second point of departure was found by swapping the spatial aspects for a more common beginning for historians, that of chronology; the eighteenth century has often been hailed as the beginning of our modern society, and such a standpoint is also common in Swedish historiography. Our approach has been to deal with the eighteenth century as a century of change and transition, but our analysis has also included a discussion of when this also became clear to people living in that century. A last point in our common framework stems from our different disciplinary backgrounds. It is fair to say, picking two extremes, that economic history has a tradition of analysing the material aspects of economic development, while literature has dwelled more on the discursive side. However, in keeping with our ambition of returning to an eighteenth-century understanding of the period, such a distinction is not feasible, and all participants have been asked to address both these sides in their chapters. The French eighteenth-century historian, Daniel Roche, has stated that ‘we must try to understand the possible connections between facts of intellectual culture and facts of material culture’.10 This is an ambition we share! The Great Divergence and Global Development It is now more than half a century since Eric Hobsbawm published his masterpiece, The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848, the first tome of a four-volume treatment of the modern world. The most enduring aspect of this work has been his way of seeing the coming of the modern world in terms of a ‘dual revolution’; it was the joint forces of political events and economic development that set the modern world in motion. Even though he made it clear that the world had seen change prior to 1789, he stressed the importance of the ‘period which begins with the construction of the   Daniel Roche, France in the Enlightenment, Cambridge, MA 2000, p. 7.

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first factory system of the modern world in Lancashire and the French Revolution of 1789’, and which ended with railways and the Communist Manifesto. What Hobsbawm did was to indicate that the modern world was created with a ‘Big Bang’, but also that these ‘explosions’ were first heard in Britain and France.11 Hobsbawm was hardly the first scholar stating that the modern world was born with a revolutionary upheaval, and he was not the last either. The revolutionary metaphor was already being used in relation to industrial progress and economic developments in the first half of the nineteenth century; French observers stunned by British industrial accomplishments transformed their views from 1789 to form the concept of an Industrial Revolution. However, it was not until the later decades of the century before it was adopted into the academic jargon.12 In 1884 appeared, posthumously, Arnold Toynbee’s Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England, with its famous phrase that ‘the old society’ was ‘broken to pieces by the mighty blows of the steam engine and the power loom’, and no one can doubt his emphasis on a rapid and sweeping process.13 As a centenary celebration, David Cannadine published an article in 1984 examining how the concept has evolved over the period; the revolutionary aspect of the industrial development had been challenged, but the concept had always regained a powerful status within the academic world, and especially so among economic historians.14 The 1970s and 1980s, for instance, saw the concept being challenged by the concept of proto-industrialisation and the gradualist approach, both pointing towards more pronounced economic development in the first two thirds of the century, as well as a slightly lesser impact after the 1770s; what had been hailed as an Industrial Revolution became an evolution, stretching over at least the entire eighteenth century.15 The French Revolution has fared similarly, with scholars disputing whether it was a rapid rupture with the past or rather the climax of events which gradually changed French society. A recent textbook began by stating that ‘[t]he French 11   Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848, London 1962. The quotation comes from the last sentence of his Introduction. 12   See Joel Mokyr, The British Industrial Revolution. An Economic Perspective, Boulder 1993, pp. 4–5. 13   Arnold Toynbee, Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England, 1884. Quoted from Pat Hudson, The Industrial Revolution, London 1992, p. 11. 14   David Cannadine, ‘The Present and the Past in the English Industrial Revolution 1880–1980’, Past and Present, 103, 1984. See also Anders Florén and Göran Rydén, Arbete, hushåll och region. Tankar om industrialiseringsprocesser och den svenska järnhanteringen, Uppsala 1992; Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, ‘Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution’, Economic History Review, XLV, 1 (1992). 15   For an introduction to the debate about proto-industrialisation, see Sheilagh Ogilvie and Marcus Cerman (eds), European Proto-Industrialization, Cambridge 1996; for the gradualist interpretation, see N.F.R. Craft, British Economic Growth During the Industrial Revolution, Oxford 1985.

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Revolution is one of the great turning-points in history’,16 but at the same time William Doyle concluded another book by stating that ‘France and the French underwent profound changes between the 1650s and 1788’.17 All in all, it is fair to say that the revolutionary aspects of both the Industrial and the French Revolutions still retain some explanatory power, even if scholars have argued that the eighteenth century as a whole should be viewed as a long period of change and transition. In a similar vein, it is possible to argue that other scholars reduced the explanatory power of the view of the latter decades of the eighteenth century as a rapid rupture by discussing the seventeenth century in terms of a military and a scientific revolution.18 Even so, it is important to remember that Howsbawm was in the forefront when it came to relating the ‘dual revolutions’ to each other, as well as pointing to their role in the making of modern society. This way of connecting revolution to revolution became a template for the next generation of scholars, along with questions of what brought these rapid ruptures about. Once economic historians had established the Industrial Revolution as the beginning of modern society, the aim became to establish what had brought about the industrial development in the first place. The key question was, was it something in the old agrarian society? In 1969, David Landes, a stern advocate of the classical view of the Industrial Revolution, stated that an agricultural revolution had predated industrial development, with enclosures, crop rotation, new cultivation techniques, etc.19 Other scholars have added that an agricultural revolution also created a necessary market for industrial goods, as well as ‘released labour to industry’.20 Agriculture was also important in the discussion about proto-industrialisation, with its emphasis on division of labour between regions, or between town and country, as well as establishing manufacturers in the countryside.21 Closely linked to this discussion, scholars began to talk about a consumer revolution. It was new-found wealth that triggered the demand for new goods

  Peter McPhee, The French Revolution 1789–1799, Oxford 2002, p. 1.   William Doyle, ‘Conclusion’, in William Doyle (ed.), Old Regime France 1648–

16 17

1788, Oxford 2001, p. 250. 18   For an introduction, see Clifford J. Rogers, The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Oxford 1995; Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, Chicago 1996. 19   David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change and the Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge 1969, p. 77. 20   For a more modern treatment of the agricultural revolution, see Robert Allen, ‘Agriculture during the industrial revolution’, in Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey (eds), The Economic History of Britain since 1700. Volume I: 1700–1860, Cambridge 1994. The quotation is from p. 121. 21   Ogilvie and Cerman (eds), European Proto-Industrialization.

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and commodities, which in turn set the Industrial Revolution in motion,22 but this approach has also hinted at important non-material aspects. People like Timothy Breen have argued that the new ‘Empire of Goods’ also shaped the political developments in late eighteenth-century America, and thus paved the way for its political revolution.23 The discussion on a consumer revolution soon also included studies which went beyond the economic sphere, and replaced the analyses of demand with studies of desire and taste; culture floated to the surface of these studies.24 Such a discussion also guided Jan de Vries to introduce yet another revolution to the debate about the roots of modern society, but one that once again shifted culture towards the edge of the analysis. The underlying argument behind de Vries’ concept of an Industrious Revolution is that it is difficult to establish what came first, a rise in demand or in supply, and the basic assumption is that it was the interaction between supply and demand that triggered the development towards ‘the macrohistorical processes of modern economic growth and state formation’. The household was given a pivotal importance in a process whereby people decided to work longer hours in order to satisfy their demands in the market. New commodities entered into the circuit of everyday life and workers concentrated their efforts on more specialised tasks; it was the twin processes of division of labour and market expansion that enhanced output while also gradually lowering the prices.25 De Vries gives little room to cultural features, but culture has been more pronounced in recent studies of the material world of economics and politics. Breen’s ideas about a link between people’s attitudes to consumption and the American Revolution have parallels in analyses of the political upheaval in France, linking the Enlightenment to the French Revolution. Ever since the revolutionary period, a debate has been ongoing about the causes of the revolution; was it social factors that brought about the upheaval, or had philosophical arguments an important role? It is fair to say that during the linguistic turn of recent decades many studies have enhanced the role of the philosophes, and their writings, in the demise of l’ancien régime. The Enlightenment is seen as the antithesis to the religious and hierarchical society dominating eighteenth-century Europe prior to 1789, and the intellectual side of the road to modern society. Recent studies of the Enlightenment have also connected the intellectual movement to economic development and technological change, two crucial aspects in the discussion about   For an introduction, see John Brewer and Roy Porter (eds), Consumption and the World of Goods, London 1993. 23   T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution. How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford 2004. 24   John Styles and Amanda Vickery (eds), Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700–1830, New Haven 2006. 25   Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution. Consumer Behaviour and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present, Cambridge 2008. The quotation is from p. 9. 22

10

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an Industrial Revolution. According to John Robertson, the Enlightenment was all about ‘understanding … the causes and conditions of human betterment in this world’,26 and Joel Mokyr saw the Enlightenment as an intermediate intellectual phase between the scientific revolution and the Industrial Revolution. In his ‘industrial enlightenment’, entrepreneurs and artisans learned to turn scientific achievements into industrially practical solutions; Mokyr is an advocate of an industrial revolution as the beginning to our modern society, but it was not born with a ‘Big Bang’.27 Hobsbawm was thus not the first scholar to use the revolutionary metaphor in explaining historical change, but he was among the first to link one revolution to another in order to sketch a beginning to the modern world. According to him, a watershed could be found between l’ancien régime and the society he lived in, and the beginning of that divide was the ‘dual revolution’ in Britain and France. Many scholars have followed this path from ‘multiple revolutions’ towards our present society, with an agricultural revolution being added to the ‘dual revolution’, and later also a consumer and an industrious revolution. The problem with such an intellectual development, of adding penetrating upheaval to upheaval, is that it drains the concept of its dramatic content; de Vries’ Industrious Revolution was hardly as revolutionary as the initial meaning of the ‘dual revolution’, and what we are dealing with is rather a prolonged period of gradual but penetrating change.28 A decade ago the debate was once again re-opened, but from yet another perspective. In a collection on ‘cultural revolutions’, Colin Jones and Dror Wahrman assessed the importance of Hobsbawm’s influence, and especially his ‘particular view of the experience of the French and British nations’, but they stressed that ‘empirical research has been eroding the bases of the dual revolutions model’. Their verdict is that these two societies did not experience any dramatic political or economic upheaval. However, they do state this with a twist, as research based on ‘new theoretical and methodological developments’ have pointed to other fields where change was dramatic. Scholars inspired by feminist historiography, the linguistic turn and Michel Foucault have detected radical cultural ruptures in the period.29 Among the different fields dealt with in The Age of Cultural Revolutions we find death, war propaganda, theatre, domesticity, feminism, etc.30 However, this 26   John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment. Scotland and Naples 1680–1760, Cambridge 2005, p. 8. 27   Joel Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy. An Economic History of Britain 1700– 1850, New Haven 2009. 28   For a general treatment, see Roy Porter and Mikulàš Teich (eds), Revolution in History, Cambridge 1986. 29   Colin Jones and Dror Wahrman, ‘Introduction. An Age of Cultural Revolutions?’, in Colin Jones and Dror Wahrman (eds), The Age of Cultural Revolutions. Britain and France, 1750–1820, Berkeley 2002, quotations from pp. 1, 7 and 13. 30   Jones and Wahrman (eds), The Age of Cultural Revolutions.

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survey only covers a small fraction of the research done in recent decades. Gender is treated by several authors in the collection, and it is fair to say that gender studies have challenged our views about the eighteenth century. Margaret Hunt has insisted that even though European women during the eighteenth century were subordinated to men, this gradually changed, and women became more present in public. She points to female agency and thus to a link between gender and the overall change of the century. Karen O’Brien has also stressed gendered aspects of the progressive British society.31 Race is another aspect of the century receiving more interest, and Mary Louise Pratt, for instance, has pointed to the ambiguity of the Linnaean system in viewing other people and places, and how that came to be a governing principle in modern society.32 Ideas of a ‘cultural revolution’ have also been present in discussions within ‘classical’ culture studies, such as art, literature and music. John Brewer discussed all three of these in his The Pleasures of the Imagination, a pioneering study of a culturally rapidly changing Britain,33 and Tim Blanning also gave art an important role in his analysis of Europe in transition. Antoine Watteau’s L’Enseigne de Gersaint, from 1720, becomes a sign of a changing continent. In a corner of this picture of an art dealer’s shop, the painter has depicted a painting of Louis XIV being put into a wooden chest: absolutist Europe was about to fall.34 Music and literature historians have also thought in terms of cultural revolutions when describing the transition from the Baroque to the Galant style in music, or when dealing with the breakthrough of the novel.35 It is beyond doubt that recent achievements within early-modern cultural studies make it possible for Jones and Wahrman to talk about the eighteenth century in terms of a ‘cultural revolution’, but they perhaps fall prey to the same type of criticism they direct to the ‘dual revolution’, about a lack of ‘revolutionary’ content; are we really dealing with rapid transformations of cultural features? Another problem is whether it is possible to make such a sharp dividing line between the ‘dual revolution model’ and arguments about ‘cultural revolutionaries’. The ‘cultural turn’ has shifted ‘the grounds in terms of foci of investigation, structures 31   Margaret R. Hunt, Women in Eighteenth-Century Europe, Harlow 2010; Karen O’Brien, Women and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Cambridge 2009. 32   Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation, London 1992. 33   John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination. English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, London 1997. 34   T.C.W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture. Old Regime Europe 1660–1789, Oxford 2002, pp. 103ff. See Matthew Craske, Art in Europe 1700– 1830, Oxford 1997, for a general overview of this development. 35   Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780, New York 2003; Robert O. Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style, New York 2007; Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel. Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, Berkeley 1957; Jane Spencer, The Rise of the Woman Novelist. From Aphra Behn to Jane Austen, Oxford 1986; April London, The Cambridge Introduction to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, Cambridge 2012.

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of argument, criteria of relevance, and prioritization of historical causation’,36 but does that mean that we should abandon earlier interests in political and economic developments? Emma Rothschild has, on several occasions, written about what could be called the ‘indistinctiveness’ of the eighteenth century; the ‘boundaries of economic, political, and military existence were indistinct’, but so were the ‘frontiers between philosophical and political and popular ideas’.37 She has also stressed that the eighteenth-century economy must be analysed from a view of the Enlightenment and with considerations of sentiments as a supporting structure.38 It is, thus, difficult to make a sharp distinction between culture and the material world for the eighteenth century, as people of the period did not think in the same categories as we do, and even concepts we share contained a different meaning in the eighteenth century; when Daniel Defoe dealt with ‘trade’ he included more than we do today, and his concept was an amalgam between production, commerce and consumption, and further encapsulated ideas about what certain groups in society, but also in different parts of the world, should consume. ‘Art’ is another concept that gradually got a new, and narrower, meaning in the eighteenth century. It is true that a division between the ‘liberal’ and the ‘mechanical’ arts was already in place, but it is equally clear that many bonds tied them together for a large part of the century, such as the guild tradition as well as training and guidelines for what good art was to be. In Diderot’s treatment it was clear that the ‘liberal’ and the ‘mechanical’ arts belonged together, and should support each other. Trade and art can also be brought closer together, something that both Defoe and Diderot would have appreciated, to enhance the connections between ‘the facts of intellectual culture and facts of material culture’, per Roche. Maxine Berg has approached the period in a similar way. She began as an intellectual historian, and became an industrial historian. However, she soon abandoned the world of production for consumption and luxury, but has recently united all these aspects in analyses of the trade between Europe and Asia.39 Another scholar in favour of integrated analyses is Christopher Bayly. In his The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, from 2004, he stresses that people around the world were not just toiling in fields and workshops but also consumed goods and desired yet other commodities, as well as trying to emulate work and consuming patterns from other groups or countries. Bayly begins with the Industrious Revolution, but the   Jones and Wahrman, ‘Introduction’, p. 7.   Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires. An Eighteenth-Century History,

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Princeton 2011; the quotations are from pp. 4 and 141. 38   Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments. Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment, Cambridge, MA 2001. 39   For a discussion about Defoe and the concept of trade, see Evans and Rydén, Baltic Iron, Chapter 1; Denis Diderot, Political Writings, Cambridge 1992, pp. 5f.; Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Oxford 2005.

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analysis is brought down to the level of the human body and cultural experiences; he starts with ‘bodily practices’. The attempt is then to ‘translate’ this into a macro perspective where ‘[t]he movements of economies, ideologies, and states were not always synchronous. They tended to be interactive’, and there ‘were also revolutions in “discourse”’. (Rothschild has a similar ambition when she relates ‘the inner life’ of people to the empire.) However, Bayly does more than link material developments to culture, as he also restates the argument of a ‘Big Bang’ during the latter decades of the eighteenth century. He does so, however, from a totally different spatial point of view. If Jones and Wahrman agitated for a ‘cultural turn’, Bayly is an advocate for a ‘spatial turn’, as his analysis is truly global. The period between 1780 and 1820 saw ‘converging revolutions’, on many continents, where ‘the old regimes’ were replaced by modernity. These 40 years also witnessed the beginning of globally converging developments affecting industrialisation, urbanisation and the modern nation state, as well as religion, literature and art. However, Bayly also had problems with his chronological demarcations, as he is aware that the eighteenth century was hardly at a standstill. His analytical solution to this was the concept of an ‘archaic globalization’.40 Bayly is not the only scholar viewing the turn of the eighteenth century as both revolutionary and globally ‘connected’. Kenneth Pomeranz had, a few years before, published his The Great Divergence, a comparative study of China and Europe. According to him, these two continents shared a similar development until the later decades of the eighteenth century, but from then on they diverged onto different trajectories. In Britain, growth and development became the future, while China faced the Malthusian trap of poverty and stagnation; the title of the book can be read from both a spatial and a chronological perspective. To Pomeranz, the dividing features were the abundance of mineral fuel in Europe and the process of colonisation; the West grew rich due to the extraction of coal and the exploitation of other parts of the world.41 The significance of Bayly and Pomeranz is not only related to them connecting a ‘revolution’ around 1800 with the beginning of globalisation, something that neither Hobsbawm nor Jones and Wahrman had done, but equally important are the methodological aspects of their writings. Bayly had ‘Connections and Comparisons’ in his title while Pomeranz did the same with his first chapter, and since then the writings of global history have been intimately linked with these twin concepts. Patrick O’Brien has pointed to the ‘two styles of modern global history:

  Christopher Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, Oxford 2004; the quotations are from pp. 5, 6 and 12. 41   Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence. China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton 2000. See also David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds), The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840, London 2010. 40

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connection and comparison’.42 Pomeranz, Bayly and O’Brien are forerunners in the development of the latest vogue of history writings, global history, but most historians would agree that neither comparisons nor connections are new features in our common toolbox. Curious Cosmopolitanism In his promotion of a history spanning the whole globe, using the approach of connection and comparison, O’Brien stated that global history is not a novel feature after all, and has been written within Europe ever since the first Greek historians. Herodotus was its founding father, and he should be embraced ‘for the scale, scope and empathy of his histories’. However, this tradition has been dwarfed by the conflicting tradition stemming from Thucydides, and its spatially more confined approach, ever since. During the eighteenth century, however, the tradition from Herodotus made a powerful comeback. After centuries with increasing trade, and an expanding knowledge about lands and people outside Europe, scholars were well equipped to deal with other civilisations.43 European historical writing in the Age of Enlightenment was dominated by a spatially more encompassing tradition in which both connections and comparisons were of crucial importance. Traditionally, Enlightenment historians have been hailed for their emphasis on progress and development; Scottish thinkers like Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith saw the development of human societies in four different stages.44 However, more recently, scholars have been more alerted to a spatial foundation for such a way of thinking. Karen O’Brien has, for instance, shown how Voltaire wrote history in a fashion which can very much be characterised as connected. He abandoned the chronological narratives of his predecessors, structured on religion and monarchs, to concentrate on synchronic ties within the societies he dealt with; in his Siècle de Louis XIV he connected ‘[e]conomy, military and legal reforms [with] improvements in technology and communications’. He also strived to reach outside the boundaries of solitary countries and instead ‘centred upon the evolution and existence of a unique, common European civilisation’.45   Patrick O’Brien, ‘Historiographical traditions and modern imperatives for the restoration of global history’, Journal of Global History 1 (2006), p. 4. 43   O’Brien, ‘Historiographical traditions’, pp. 7–11. For a general treatment of global history since the eighteenth century, see Georg G. Iggers, Q. Edward Wang and Supriya Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography, Harlow 2008. For an introduction to Herodotus, see Sture Linnér, Herodotos. Den förste globalisten, Stockholm 2008. 44   See Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, MA 2005, pp. 159–184, for the roots in Pufendorf of the development of these theories. 45   Karen O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment. Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbons, Cambridge 1997. The quotations are from pp. 22 and 35. 42

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Voltaire’s most wide-ranging work of history, Essai sur les mæurs et l’esprit des nations, is revealing in both these respects. In the preface to an English translation from 1759, it is stated that this ‘work is not a chronological compilement, or a dry series of genealogies and facts’, but instead ‘a philosophical history of the world’, including ‘various parts of the globe’; it would ‘give lessons to all nations’. Voltaire himself adds that the purpose of the book was not ‘to learn in what a year a prince unworthy of being known, succeeded to a barbarous sovereign in an uncivilized nation’, but rather to tell the story of ‘who have improved the manners and contributed to the happiness of their people’. The book should further serve as ‘a great magazine, out of which you may take what will serve your purpose’. The relationship between the global ambition of the text and the notion of progress is dealt with by Voltaire stating that Europe might be more developed than other parts of the globe, but that had not always been the case; ‘When you consider this globe as a philosopher, you first direct your attention to the east, the nursery of all arts, and from whence they have been communicated to the west.’ China is hailed: ‘This state has subsisted in splendour above 4000 years’, while the European progress is recent as ‘our European chaos assumes a new form after the decline of the Roman empire’.46 It was not only connections that were used by the philosophical historians of the eighteenth century. Comparisons were also a crucial ingredient. Hugh TrevorRoper has insisted that Edward Gibbon, another of the pivotal historians of the period, was immensely influenced by ‘the essentially sociological method’ of ‘the great teacher of the new historians of the eighteenth century: Montesquieu’, and that he began his analysis by comparing different societies: What was it that governed people’s actions? and How did societies develop? were questions Gibbon had inherited from the French teacher.47 To Trevor-Roper it was the combination of the comparative approach and the connected nature of the eighteenth century that gave impetus to the development of ideas on progress. He gave the following account of eighteenth-century Scotland: It is when a society finds itself faced, whether from outside or within itself, at the same time, by two distinct and strongly contrasting worlds, a world of antique custom inherited from the past and a world of rapid movement inspired by new ideas from abroad, that thinking men are forced to speculate on the social ambience of man and the mechanism of its change.48

In such a way, eighteenth-century history writing became entangled with the overall aspiration of the Enlightenment, as ‘the commitment to understanding, 46   Voltaire, An Essay on Universal History, the Manners, and Spirit of Nations, From the Reign of Charlemaign to the Age of Lewis XIV, London 1759, Vol. I, pp. 1–10. 47   Hugh Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment, New Haven 2010, pp. 138 and 150. 48   Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment, p. 33.

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and hence to advancing, the causes and conditions of human betterment in this world’,49 but also to the growing interest in global issues. It is not possible to understand Voltaire, Gibbon or any other of the eighteenth-century historians without stressing the cosmopolitanism of the century. Trevor-Roper pointed to ‘the cosmopolitanism of the Scots’ in the development of the stadial model and its emphasis on progress, and Karen O’Brien saw this as an undercurrent in the development of a new form of history writing.50 In many ways the concept of cosmopolitanism has followed a similar path to the writing of global history since the time of Herodotus. The former is also sprung from the classical Greek tradition, partly as a response from Stoic philosophers to the expansion of the Greek sphere, and their willingness to include strangers and enemies into the frame of an encompassing notion; people did not just belong to one particular polis but rather to the sum of all polis, and they were all cosmopolitans. To some extent such views, of an open society belonging to people from the whole world, remained important within early Christian thoughts and the humanist tradition of the Renaissance, even though it could always be debated who really belonged to this society as well as from what angle the inclusion was to be decided. For a long time these debates circulated around religious and moral issues.51 It is, however, in the eighteenth century, parallel to European exploration and colonisation of the world, as well as the rise of global history, that we find the development of a modern discussion about cosmopolitanism. Some scholars have even stated that the concept ‘characterized the Enlightenment in such a way that it can be called a key concept of the period’.52 The short definition of a Cosmopolite in the Encyclopédie, from 1754, is of course a key text in this respect, as it takes a starting point in the Stoic idea of being at home everywhere, or as being ‘un homme qui n’a point de demeure fixe’.53 It was thus a pledge for a boundaryless society open to people from all around the globe. A similar meaning was also implicit when the word was used for the first time in Swedish, towards the end of the century, but already in 1764 the word Kosmopolitisk had been used in a Swedish economic journal, with a more general meaning of something that belonged to all humanity, and not one particular country.54 In English we find the same meaning: Samuel Johnson gave a joint definition of both cosmopolitan   Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment, p. 8.   Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment, p. 22; O’Brien, Narratives of

49 50

Enlightenment, p. 20. 51   For an introduction, see Pauline Kleingeld and Eric Brown, ‘Cosmopolitanism’, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/cosmopolitanism, accessed 28 March 2013. 52   Rebecka Lettewall, ‘The Idea of Kosmopolis: Two Kinds of Cosmopolitanism’, in Rebecka Lettewall and My Klockar Linder (eds), The Idea of Kosmopolis. History, Philosophy and Politics of World Citizenship, Stockholm 2008, p. 15. 53   Encyclopédie, Vol. 4, Paris 1754, p. 297. 54   Lettewall, ‘The Idea of Kosmopolis’; Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (SAOB), the

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and cosmopolite as ‘A citizen of the world; one who is at home in every place’.55 Another British example is that when Oliver Goldsmith wanted to describe the European society from a Chinese perspective, he picked The Citizen of the World as the title to his book.56 The Stoic roots to eighteenth-century discussions on cosmopolitanism tell a story of stability and stasis, but the period also meant a gradual departure from this classical tradition. For a start, cosmopolitanism was hardly a concept with a unified definition and, as it turned out, it was not an undisputed idea among philosophers of the Enlightenment. One important beginning for the development of the concept is the much broader base from which ideas of cosmopolitanism were generated. Pauline Kleingeld has even stated that as many as ‘Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism’ existed in late eighteenth-century Germany alone. It is fair to state that during the classical period the discussion was centred on moral issues, with religious matters being added later. During the eighteenth century the foundation expanded further, and cosmopolitanism became an important aspect within the spheres of politics, economics and culture. According to Kleingeld, morality remained an important field, especially in the writings of Immanuel Kant, but it was other fields that expanded; cosmopolitanism became an important aspect in debates on state formation, global trade and international law, as well as in cultural expressions.57 Another important aspect of eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism is the critique that was directed towards it. It is fair to say that many Enlightenment philosophers, such as the abovementioned Voltaire and Kant, should be viewed as advocates for a globally open society where borders were meant to be crossed. However, not everybody shared that view, and no one personified this critical attitude better than Rousseau. He did not dispute the fact that the eighteenth-century world was much more ‘connected’ than ever before, and that Voltaire might be right in pointing towards the ‘humanitarian principles’ of the citizen of the world, but to Rousseau the main problem was to be found in the relationship between the idea of cosmopolitanism and real life; cosmopolitanism ‘was a sham’ and the cosmopolitan was a person who ‘pretended to love the whole world’.58 Heading ‘Kosmo’, printed 1937. An electronic version is available at http://g3.spraakdata. gu.se/saob, accessed 28 March 2013. 55   Samuel Johnson, A dictionary of the English language: in which the words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers. To which are prefixed, a history of the language, and an English grammar, London 1755–56, Volume one, ‘Cosmopolitan’. 56   See James Watt, ‘Goldsmith’s Cosmopolitanism’, Eighteenth-Century Life, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 56–75. 57   Pauline Kleingeld, ‘Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 3 (July 1999), pp. 505–524. 58   Helena Rosenblatt, ‘Rousseau, the anticosmopolitan’, Dœdalus, Vol. 137, Issue 3 (Summer 2008); the quotation is from pp. 59f.

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A modern scholar, Margaret Jacob, has picked up Rousseau’s thoughts about a discrepancy between the idea and the outcome for ordinary people. Jacob has recently argued that we should start to think in terms of ‘the cosmopolitan as a lived category’, and her starting point for such an analysis is that we know a fair amount of the development of the idea – we know about the definition Diderot included in his Encyclopédie, she says – but we only have a vague impression about ‘cosmopolitan practices’. She then uses a famous description of the London Stock Exchange, taken from the Spectator in 1711, where merchants from all over the world meet in ‘a cosmopolitan openness’ to conduct business, and where ‘national identities competed with professional as well as religious ones’.59 Another scholar who stressed both the link between cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment and the discrepancy between the idea and the practice is the geographer Charles Withers. In his Placing the Enlightenment he analyses the ‘Republic of Letters’ from a much more material angle than is common; letters are not only viewed as ‘containers’ of ideas and emotions but also as artefacts. They connected correspondents of ‘[c]osmopolitan networks’ and crossed national boundaries, as well as containing natural specimens such as shells and seeds. He also stresses the fact that many important books of the period were published as letters, and thus bridged letter writing with publishing and printing, as well as reaching out to an even wider reading audience. In so doing, Withers comes close to the ideas of Kleingeld in stressing the broader base of both the Enlightenment and its cosmopolitan companion, as well as emphasising the materiality of the process; ‘in thinking about the Enlightenment working geographically over space, as something dynamic, mobile, and varied […] the Enlightenment’s “traffic” – the mobility of its personnel, ideas, and artifacts’.60 It is clear that eighteenth-century cosmopolitanism was different from what it had been before. The Stoic inheritance of some kind of open ‘citizen of the world’ attitude remained at its centre, but this core meaning became challenged during the period, and to a large extent this process was influenced by other important developments during the century. The most important of these was the rapid expansion of what we today call globalisation; European exploration around the globe, with colonisation and empire building, meant that cosmopolitanism expanded outside the realm of moral writings and became an important ingredient in writings on commerce and economy, nation building and politics, etc.; the concept of cosmopolitanism became what Jacob called a ‘lived category’. The same clash between the idea and everyday life also lay behind the criticism of Rousseau, in that he did not believe in the promises of   Margaret C. Jacob, ‘The cosmopolitan as a lived category’, Dœdalus, Vol. 137, Issue 3 (Summer 2008); quotations from pp. 18, 21 and 24. The same example is used in Matthew Binney, The Cosmopolitan Evolution. Travel, Travel Narratives, and the Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century European Consciousness, Lanham 2006, pp. 155ff. 60   Charles Withers, Placing the Enlightenment. Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason, Chicago 2007. The quotation is from pp. 43 and 49. 59

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cosmopolitanism. The idea of a ‘citizen of the world’ remained an unfulfilled dream to most eighteenth-century people. The criticism by Rousseau has lingered on, from the later decades of the eighteenth century and well into our own times, and many followers have stressed the shocking outcome of colonialism, slavery and the slave trade; cosmopolitanism has been equated with economic globalisation and capitalist exploitation. As a result of this development, Karen O’Brien wants us to be cautious when we discuss cosmopolitanism today. It is, she asserts, ‘no longer a term much favoured by intellectual historians’,61 and is often used from a negative perspective. In a revealing text, the geographer David Harvey returns to Kant’s view of cosmopolitanism and, according to him, an analysis of the writings of the Königsberg professor directs us to a road that leads to the racism and nationalism of later centuries. What Harvey does is to re-open one of the most important debates about the nature of the Enlightenment, and he takes a similar standpoint as once did Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, but from a spatial angle; the philosophical movement of the eighteenth century led eventually to the horrors of the twentieth century.62 O’Brien wants us to take a different approach, and instead try to uncover the eighteenth-century meaning of cosmopolitanism in all its uncertainties, but with a core meaning that ‘all nations are endowed with valid histories and identities which intersect with, and compete with, each other […] and an intellectual investment in the idea of a common European civilisation’.63 Trevor-Roper would agree, as he has stated that the development of a new philosophy of history implied that ‘all humanity came naturally and equally in, and most of the great eighteenth-century historians […] extended their range to other continents and other civilisations’.64 These views of other civilisations were often used in order to contrast European conditions and experience, and not seldom to the disadvantage of Europe. Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes is perhaps the most famous example, but another important case is how Denis Diderot used Tahiti in a discussion about French sexual morality and the politics of population.65 Such a curious cosmopolitanism, based around an ambition of knowing more about the globe and its different inhabitants, is also visible in Diderot’s involvement in abbé Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes. In the introduction, Diderot wrote:   O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, p. 2.   David Harvey, ‘Cosmopolitanism and the Banality of Geographical Evils’, Public

61 62

Culture, 12 (2) (Spring 2000), pp. 529–564. Harvey has recently returned to that theme in his Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom, New York 2009. 63   O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, p. 2. 64   Trevor-Roper, History and the Enlightenment, p. 3. That such an approach can be seen as too simple is obvious from Kleingeld, ‘Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism’. 65   Anne Fastrup and Knut Ove Eliassen, ‘Drømmen om Sydhavet: Biopolitik og seksualitet i Denis Diderots Supplément au voyage de Bouganville’, Sjuttonhundratal. Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2010, pp. 123–145.

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To the daunting task [of describing the vast changes brought about, within Europe and across the world, by the discovery of the West Indies and the East Indies] I have devoted my life. I have called upon informed men of all nations to help me. I have questioned the living and the dead […] in whatever language they have used, what they have thought and known. […] The venerable image of the truth has always been in front of my eyes. O holy Truth! […] You shed tears for the persecuted genius, for forgotten talent, for unrewarded virtue. You pour insult and shame on those who deceive and oppress men.66

Figure 1.2

‘Hela Iordkretzens afritning’, unknown Swedish world map from the eighteenth century

Source: Uppsala University Library.

In the last 50 years, the eighteenth century has been given a prominent position in discussions about our present society. Eric Hobsbawm and his ‘dual revolution’ from 1962 was an inspiration, but his view has been challenged from many directions. A first strand of criticism dealt with the ‘revolutionary’ aspect of his analysis, and now the common view is that we are dealing with gradual processes which are also wider in scope; the Industrial Revolution was predated by revolutions in agriculture, commerce and consumer patterns, and these were in turn related to political revolutions. In short, one can say that Hobsbawm stressed the later decades of the eighteenth century, while the present view is that the whole century witnessed a gradual, but steady, development away from l’ancien   Diderot, Political Writings, pp. 169f.

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régime. Another strand of criticism has pointed to the lack of empirical proofs for Hobsbawm’s thesis, but instead insisted on cultural revolutions. However, recent research on ‘material culture’ has indicated a much tighter link between the ‘spheres’ of culture and material life, and pointed to a strategy for future research embracing both sides together. Another angle from which the traditional view has been assessed is spatial, and scholars have investigated if the ‘dual revolution’ can be detected anywhere outside of France and Britain. This discussion has now turned global, and Christopher Bayly and others have argued for the decades around 1800 as a period of ‘converging revolutions’ stretching over the whole globe. A last strand of criticism is how this gradual development and globalisation was mirrored by the way in which European intellectuals perceived the world around them. Scholars now see the Enlightenment in spatial terms, and stress that an increased awareness of continents and civilisations around the world gave impetus to a kind of curious cosmopolitanism that wanted to know more.67 A running theme in the last half-century of writings on the roots of our present society is the attempts to link different features as causes to this development; Hobsbawm related the economic sphere to the political, Mokyr saw aspects in the intellectual field that affected technological change, de Vries wanted to match supply with demand, and so on. Few attempts have, however, been made to elaborate a general view of historical change in the early-modern period, and its development towards our modern society. One scholar stands out in this respect, and that is the already-mentioned Daniel Roche, the doyen of French eighteenthcentury studies. He has time and time again stressed that it is from a multifaceted approach to a society that historical change makes sense, and how we eventually can trace the threads of what we see, or even explain, as historical development. Roche’s approach is to view eighteenth-century France as many different, but connected, layers, as well as spatial entities. By connecting and comparing these layers and spaces he arrives at models of a changing society. ‘This history of Enlightenment France becomes the history of the way in which men and milieus variously appropriated mental structures and cultural values in a permanent confrontation of economic and social horizons that was the very root of their existence.’68 The striking difference between Roche and many other scholars is that whereas the latter point towards one or two causalities for this or that aspect, Roche seems to see change as an ongoing process founded in the mobility of society. Mobility created imbalances within the complex web of society, which in a creative process made change happen.69   See, for instance, Withers, Placing the Enlightenment; David Livingstone and Charles Withers (eds), Geography and Enlightenment, Chicago 1999. 68   Roche, France in the Enlightenment, p. 7. 69   Carla Hesse, ‘Roche on the move’, French Historical Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Fall 2004), pp. 741–745. For an elaboration of this view see Göran Rydén, ‘The Enlightenment in Practice. Swedish Travellers and Knowledge about the Metal Trades’, Sjuttonhundratal. Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2013. The art historian Michael Baxandall 67

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Writing Eighteenth-Century Global History Today The spatial and cosmopolitan ambition of Enlightenment historiography lost ground during the nineteenth century, and the tradition from Thucydides replaced Herodotus’ ‘global history’; Voltaire was substituted by Leopold von Ranke and his confined approach. When Herodotus reappeared in the twentieth century, it is hardly surprising that he did so within the Annales school, bearing its close ties to geography. As early as 1928, Marc Bloch published an article on the comparative method, and its three different uses: to discover unique features, to generate new research and to find causalities. Bloch was not unaware of problems with the method, and it is interesting to note that while discussing these he also dealt with connections; one distinction he made was between comparisons of related and unrelated societies. He also discussed borders in comparative work; scholars sometimes made the mistake of not imagining that these could change. Bloch has been hailed as the father of comparative history, but the article from 1928 can also be read as a pledge for ‘connected’ history, and Bloch can thus be viewed as an early advocate for global history.70 However, it is Fernand Braudel, another member of the Annales school, that is normally seen as the godfather of global history. It is hardly a coincidence that when Braudel took his doctoral degree in 1947 he did so with a thesis with a name that would have pleased Voltaire; it was called La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen á l’époque de Philippe II, which pointed to a connected history of a wide region, with the king used foremost as a chronological demarcation. Even if this work was criticised for trying to grasp too much, and even to be ‘a history without people’, his next work had an even wider approach; Civilisation matérielle et capitalisme, published between 1967 and 1979, was truly global in scope and dealt not only with early-modern Europe but the rest of the world as well. Braudel wrote a history that transcended the enclosed (Thucydides) tradition of his time. On the one hand he went beyond the nation state, but he also had the ambition of connecting geography, climate and mentalities with population, uses a similar approach when analysing the making, as well as descriptions, of art. With concepts like ‘period eye’ he wants to make us aware that material artefacts change meaning throughout time and in social interactions, but also that artists help to promote change by making art that challenges prevailing ideas. Deena Goodman follows a similar procedure when she discusses the making, as well as usages, of a French writing table throughout the eighteenth century. See Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention. On the Historical Explanation of Pictures, New Haven 1985; Mikael Ahlund, Landskapets röster. Studier i Elias Martins bildvärld, Stockholm 2011; Dena Goodman, ‘Furnishing Discourses: Readings of a Writing Desk in Eighteenth-Century France’, in Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (eds), Luxury in the Eighteenth Century. Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, Houndmills 2003. 70   I have used the English translation: Marc Bloch, ‘Towards a Comparative History of European Societies’, in Frederic C. Lane and Jelle C. Riemersma (eds), Enterprise and Secular Change. Readings in Economic History, London 1953.

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economic systems, states, societies and civilisations. On top of these connected structures he placed the rapidly changing events of political life. Braudel strove towards a histoire totale, where everything was connected into a totality of life.71 It is hardly possible to overstate the importance of Bloch and Braudel for future generations of historians. The former’s comparative history has had an immense impact, but it has often been used as a kind of antithesis to global history, in writings of national history. In recent debates about global history some have even questioned the novelty of the developing new field; if global history is about comparisons, the argument runs, what then is new? However, to compare different countries with each other, or transnational history, is not the same thing as global history.72 It is easier to see the impact from Braudel, and the importance of connections. Most recent writings on global history have leaned more towards this aspect, and perhaps this development has sprung from an awareness that national comparisons have not been able to do justice to historians’ attempts to analyse the historical roots of our present globalised age; its objects are no longer national entities, in themselves or in a comparative perspective, but rather processes spanning the whole globe. Global history at present is more connections than comparisons, but that does not mean that the latter is of no importance. Comparisons are often used in an explanatory way or towards the end, when conclusions will be drawn. In a way, one might say that global historians can reap the benefit from many years of transnational history, and be quite capable of making statements concerning connections.73 If comparisons and connections have been the linchpin of global history during its relatively short existence, this ‘double C’ alliteration has in recent years been given a third companion by the addition of ‘community’; a triad of ‘C’s is now what global history should be about. The principle of this addition has been that no historian could have a full knowledge of global developments, but a community approach with global connections makes it easier to undertake empirical research. As Eric Vanhaute has put it,

71   For an introduction, see Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution; The Annales School 1929–1989, London 1990. See also Fernand Braudel, On History, Chicago 1980. 72   See the recent debate in Historisk Tidskrift: Stefan Eklöf Amirell, ‘Den världshistoriska vändningen Möjligheter och problem i relation till svensk historisk forskning’, Historisk Tidskrift, 4 (2008); Rolf Torstendahl, ‘Idén om global historia och den transnationella trenden’, Historisk Tidskrift, 2 (2009); Leos Müller and Göran Rydén, ‘Nationell, transnationell eller global historia? Replik till Stefan Eklöf Amirell och Rolf Torstendal’, Historisk Tidskrift, 4 (2009). Heinz-Gerhard Haupt has, in ‘Comparative history – a contested method’, Historisk Tidskrift, 4 (2007), pp. 698–714, stated that comparative history ‘is of recent origin’, p. 697, but this is contested here. 73   For an elaboration, see Müller and Rydén, ‘Nationell, transnationell eller global historia?’. See also Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor (eds), Comparison and History. Europe in Cross-National Perspective, London 2004.

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Sweden in the Eighteenth-Century World writing global history has to follow a threefold trajectory: a comparative analysis of societies and human systems, an analysis focusing on connections, interactions, and circulations between societies and human systems, and a systems-analysis looking at societal (economic, social, cultural) structures as units of analysis. This threefold trajectory has to be understood as a unity, or better, a trinity.74

David Armitage has proposed a similar structure for the study of the Atlantic world in the early-modern period. He writes about a ‘Circum-Atlantic history’, a ‘Trans-Atlantic history’ and a ‘Cis-Atlantic history’, and his distinction is based on connections and comparisons, while the third way ‘studies particular places as unique locations within an Atlantic world and seeks to define that uniqueness as the result of the interaction between local particularity and a wider web of connections (and comparisons)’.75 Global history is thus foremost about connections, between countries, regions and even people, but, if Braudel (and Roche) is to be taken seriously, also between different layers of one country or region; it is fair to state that to Braudel histoire totale encapsulates what today is meant by global history. To Braudel, the historian should not only try to establish connections between different places, but also between different layers within one and the same place. In fairness, the French historian only forgot to scrutinise one connection, and that was the one between the historian himself and his object of study. Histoire croisée is doing that. In a critical review of recent trends within global history, Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann have stated that scholars within the tradition have only analysed ‘buried realities’, but ignored the fact that history must be analysed from ‘a multiplicity of possible viewpoints’, and that these different realities must also be brought into the analysis. These ideas were first elaborated in discussions about the First World War with French and German historians, but scholars can also differ in ‘language, terminologies, categorizations and conceptualizations, traditions, and disciplinary usages’. According to Werner and Zimmermann, histoire croisée opens up ‘a threefold process’, beginning with the object itself, the analytical categories and the link between the scholar and the object, and might be seen as a combination of ‘traditional’ history-writing, ‘Begriffsgeschichte’ and postmodern self-reflection.76 74   Eric Vanhaute, ‘Who is afraid of global history? Ambitions, pitfalls and limits of learning global history’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 20. Jg. Band 2/2009. The quotation is from p. 25. 75   David Armitage, ‘Three Concepts of Atlantic History’, in David Armitage and Michael J. Braddick (eds), The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, Basingstoke 2002. The quotation is from p. 21. 76   Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, ‘Beyond comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory 45 (February 2006), pp. 31–33.

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To conclude, it is fairly easy to find similarities between the eighteenth century and today. Both periods are characterised by an intensified globalisation. During the older period we find increased trade and the creation of empires, but also a growing interest in scientific travels and the collection of information about foreign places. The present age is also permeated with global trade but also with the dissolution of empires; we live in an era of ‘post-colonialism’. Both periods are also characterised by what has been called here a curious cosmopolitanism; the wish to know more about other parts of the globe. In the eighteenth century this was an integrated part of being a ‘philosophical historian’, while today we call it global history. Comparisons and connections were the main tools in the eighteenth century, as they still are today. The idea behind this book is to take this curious cosmopolitanism and direct it towards the period when it was first elaborated; the aim of this book is to study the cosmopolitan Swedish eighteenth century, from a curious perspective. In such a venture it is important to be aware of two crucial differences between the scholarly world of the eighteenth century and our own time. For a start, it is obvious that the eighteenth century had not developed the elaborated academic division of labour that now characterises our universities. It is clear that it was not academic boundaries that dictated what Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire, Diderot or Gibbons should do. Instead, they seem to have been driven mainly by curiosity. Voltaire, for instance, was a playwright and a poet, but also a populariser of Newton and a historian, while Diderot spanned the world of artisans and philosophy as well as being an art critic. It is also likely that the presence of broader concepts, like trade and art, worked in favour of the wider and more open approach seen in the eighteenth century. The ambition of this book is to try to compensate for our more divided and specialised academic structure by merging different academic disciplines in this project. Felicity Nussbaum has emphasised that: ‘Disciplinary boundaries … arose at the same historical moment as eighteenth-century brands of nationalism, modernity, and colonialism’, and that this must be compensated through ‘thoroughly transdisciplinary methods of inquiry, calling into question the terms by which disciplines … define their objects of study’.77 Another important difference between the two periods is that in the older century, ‘[t]he ideal method for the philosopher-historian’, using the words of Carl Becker from 1932, ‘would be the comparative method, the strictly objective, inductive, scientific method’.78 Global historians of today would hardly see themselves as constrained in such a narrow definition of writing history, but would rather promote themselves as listening to manifold voices and perspectives, as well as accepting a multiplicity of different ‘realities’; inherent in global history, 77   Felicity A. Nussbaum, ‘Introduction’, in Felicity A. Nussbaum (ed.), The Global Eighteenth Century, Baltimore 2003, pp. 9 and 11. 78   Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, New Haven (1932) 2003, pp. 100 and 117.

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and clearly in line with a curious cosmopolitanism, lies the will to understand. The recent discussion around histoire croisée has made that even more apparent. Becker wrote about reading Gibbon that ‘we seem to be taking a long journey, but all the time we remain in one place: we sit with Gibbon in the ruins of the Capitol’. To Becker, Gibbon was not aware of that, but today’s global historians must never forget that what they are dealing with are situated truths. The ‘entanglements’ of our histories are all the more important in a book encapsulating scholars from different disciplines trying to make sense of the cosmopolitan Swedish eighteenth century. Cosmopolitan Sweden in the Eighteenth Century Eighteenth-century Sweden was deeply involved in the process of globalisation. The example from Leufsta bruk can for good reasons be used as a kind of microcosm for the whole of Swedish society in this respect. Bar iron from the bruk’s forges was carted to a large warehouse by the coast, and shipped to Stockholm. After being controlled and weighed at the Great Iron Weighyard, it was exported. Britain was the main recipient, but the iron was often re-exported, after some further treatment, all around the world. Bar iron was Sweden’s main export commodity, and the trade in iron generated large profits. The many eighteenth-century manor houses, like the one at Leufsta, are a clear sign of the wealth generated by this trade, but we can also find traces in the form of lavish town houses in Stockholm and Göteborg built by the iron-trading merchants. However, these buildings are not only signs of a prosperous export trade, they also have to be viewed in relation to what arrived into Sweden; Leufsta bruk was redesigned by Jean Eric Rehn in the latest continental fashion, and he also designed a grand town house for De Geer in Stockholm.79 The import trade also brought in fine textiles, porcelain, and new exotic foodstuffs such as sugar, coffee and tea. This changed consumer patterns and ways of life, first for the nobility and the rich merchants, but then gradually also for other parts of the Swedish population. It is difficult not to mention the Swedish East India Company in this respect, both as an enterprise generating enormous profits, but also as a harbinger of both porcelain and tea, even if most of the latter was re-exported. Ships arriving at Swedish ports not only brought exotic goods and commodities to Swedish consumers, they also brought new ideas and cultural practices with them. Swedes travelled the world as never before, and they brought back ideas, books, music and art; the library at Leufsta is material evidence of such a process. They also brought ideas of cosmopolitanism with them. In 1783, Clas Fredrik Hornstedt summarised

  Anders Björnsson, Palatset som Finland räddade, Stockholm 2009.

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his experience from a journey to Ceylon. He stressed the similarities between different parts of the world, and he declared himself ‘a citizen of the world’:80 Since I have now wandered through many countries, Climates and got to know the most different nations [folkslag] I have become a citizen of the world well enough to, apart from my fatherland, find much good and beautiful, and without becoming annoyed that everything is not as with us […] The difference constitutes mere in certain modifications.

The microcosm of Leufsta bruk is an example of the cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth century, but it also reveals another crucial aspect about eighteenthcentury Sweden. Globalisation might have been a prevalent feature of this society, but one must not forget that Sweden was foremost an agricultural country still governed by self-subsistence, and that wealth was created within this structure. Bar iron from Leufsta, and some 400 other bruk, had its origin in the many mines scattered around in central Sweden, the large forests, and the work done by miners, charcoal-makers and carters. In a similar fashion, the wealth created at the landed estates was founded in the toil of the leaseholder in the fields. To use a formulation from Braudel, one might say that the process of globalisation affected mainly a thin layer of society, like a film of oil on top of an ocean of self-subsistence. Even if this layer of oil gradually got thicker, eighteenth-century Sweden was a peasant society!81 Bearing the last remark in mind, it is clear that eighteenth-century Sweden was involved in all the different processes and developments discussed in previous sections; it was part of the globalisation of the century, the consumer revolution and the Industrious Revolution. It is also beyond doubt that the Swedish iron industry clearly affected the development of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the latter decades of the century, and the happening of 1809 has been hailed as a dramatic political upheaval in Sweden in the aftermath of the French Revolution. In sum, it is beyond doubt that Sweden after the Napoleonic wars was a radically different country compared to the situation at the Peace of Nystad in 1721, and Sweden at the dawn of the new century was well integrated in the developments which scholars like Christopher Bayly have sketched. To a certain extent this is common knowledge, and Swedish scholars have traced this development for many years, but we have to say this with a few qualifications. For a start, it is clear that this knowledge is divided according to prevailing disciplinary boundaries, but also that different disciplines have been unequally keen on promoting this interest in the global, or cosmopolitan, development of   Clas Fredrik Hornstedt, ‘Dagbok under vistandes på Java 1783–1785’, Uppsala University Library, Westinska handskriftssamlingen, W 166, fol. 149v. This reference was provided by David Dunér. 81   Fernand Braudel, Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism, Baltimore 1977, Chapter 1. 80

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the Swedish eighteenth century. It is fair to say that the cultural disciplines have been more willing to deal with global influences than political and economic history. Literature historians have, for instance, not been uninterested in viewing the Swedish development against the background of happenings elsewhere, with France as the most important point of reference, while art historians have keenly pointed in the same direction. The rebuilding of the Royal Castle in Stockholm, with its influx of foreign artists and artisans, has been an ever-present example.82 The traditional narrative of Swedish scientific accomplishments during the century runs in a similar vein, but perhaps with a slightly more nationalistic touch; Swedish eighteenth-century botany and chemistry not only followed trends in Europe, but they also created them.83 It is, thus, fair to say that studies dealing with Sweden from a global and cosmopolitan perspective exist, and in some disciplines are quite frequent, but none of these attempts make a combined effort to discuss how this process was linked to the general development of Swedish society. The ambition here is to do that! Before giving a brief outline of the book we have to dwell for a moment on the spatial dimension and chronology of the entity we are exploring; what was Sweden during this period and when did it begin and end? If we start with the latter, it is clear to most historians that much research in recent years has been conducted from notions about ‘long’ or ‘short’ centuries, and that has been particularly clear with eighteenth-century scholars. British colleagues have often set their agendas on the ‘long eighteenth century’, with a beginning in 1689 and an ending in 1815, or even as late as 1832, while French historians can argue for a much shorter century; their eighteenth century might be seen as the period between the death of Louis XIV and the Revolution. In Swedish historiography the common beginning is either 1718, with the death of Charles XII, or 1721, with the Peace of Nystad; either of these years is seen as the end of Sweden’s Age of Greatness (Stormaktstiden) and the beginning of the Age of Liberty (Frihetstiden). The end of the latter period came in 1772, with the coup by Gustav III, and that has been seen as an important delineation by both Swedish political and cultural historians, with the return of an absolutist reign and the King’s ambitions in theatre, art, literature, etc. Other scholars have instead seen 1809, with the dethroning of Gustav IV Adolf in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, as the ‘true’ ending to the Swedish eighteenth   Swedish literary history of the eighteenth century was dominated by the comparative point of departure from its origins in the nineteenth century to Marie-Christine Skuncke, a leading eighteenth-century scholar of today. With the help of the concept of a literary repertoire, launched by Horace Engdahl and central to Stina Hansson, the concept of comparison has lost ground. Lately, global literary history has been in focus; see Gunilla Lindberg-Wada (ed.), Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective, Berlin 2006; Margareta Petersson (ed.), Världens litteraturer: en gränsöverskridande historia, Lund 2011. For art history, see Merit Laine, ‘1720–1809’, in Lena Johannesson (ed.), Konst och visuell kultur i Sverige. Före 1809, Stockholm 2007. 83   Lindroth, Svensk lärdomshistoria. 82

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century. From this brief account it is clear that Swedish historians cannot talk about any ‘long’ eighteenth century, at longest between 1718 and 1809, but in this book we will take our beginning in the last decades of Stormaktstiden, and end a few decades into the nineteenth century. If there are problems in delineating eighteenth-century Sweden from a chronological perspective, the same is even truer from a spatial angle. In a sense, the characterisation of seventeenth-century Sweden as Stormaktstiden has in the Swedish language a kind of double meaning. The Swedish word stor can be translated as both ‘great’ and ‘large’, and the Swedish realm expanded significantly during the century. At its beginning, Sweden encapsulated much of the lands of what now is Sweden, but not all of it, as well as Finland, but during the Age of Greatness the southern and western landscapes of present-day Sweden, Karelia and Estonia, were added, as were important tracts of land in northern Germany. In 1721, much of this was lost, and eighteenth-century Sweden can more or less be seen as an amalgam of present-day Sweden and Finland, with the addition of Swedish Pomerania. From 1784, as will be dealt with in Chapter 12, Sweden also encapsulated the small West Indian island of Saint Barthélemy. * * * Our story of the Swedish eighteenth century begins with a chapter on Language, where David Dunér analyses the early decades of the century when the Swedish polymath Christopher Polhem elaborated ideas of a universal language, spanning the spoken tongue, written words and a mechanical alphabet. This was still the time, according to Dunér, of the ‘mechanistic world view, [where] mankind, thinking, language and machines linked into each other’; it was the World of the benevolent Creator. This is followed by a chapter where Mats Morell deals with a salient feature of the early-modern era, that of Cultivation. Cultivating the land was the most important activity of the period; it was to honour the wonders of His creation at the same time as making one’s living from the endowments He had planted in this world. However, the discovery of a wider World, outside of Sweden, gradually encroached upon such views, and new ways of cultivating were established in Sweden. Enclosures, new equipment and the establishments of new crops, such as tobacco, made change a reality. The developing cosmopolitan nature of mid eighteenth-century Sweden also affected changes within the cultural sphere. Lars Berglund deals with this under the heading of Taste, and how selfcultivation and concepts like bon goût became important in wider social circles of Swedish society, in a study of music during a long European journey made by two non-aristocratic Swedes. Such a tour not only opened Swedish ears to new music, but also taught them the new polite way of musical conversation. Mercantilism, as the economic version of the mechanistic world view, reigned supreme in Swedish academic circles well into the second half of the century, but gradually came under attack from more pragmatic and practically oriented persons. Göran Rydén deals with this process under the heading of Liberty. From mid-century the Swedish

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state had the ambition of supporting the metal trades, and to do so by copying what took place mainly in Britain, but to do so with a top-down approach; the mercantilist state knew what was best. However, when Fristaden in Eskilstuna was established in 1771 a radical change had occurred and metal making was instead to expand from free artisans giving ‘the next his hand, so that they together can be a society’. After mid-century the twin features of cosmopolitanism and change began to make an impact on Swedish society. The former had been present ever since the previous century, at least in respect to the cultural sphere, but from the second half of the eighteenth century it also began to have a much wider impact, as well as being an engine for the changes that took place in Sweden; an escape route from the mechanistic world view had been slightly opened. Three chapters in the middle of this volume bear witness to this process. Sonya Peterson analyses the development of a market for prints in Stockholm, their representations and functions, under the heading of Image. Not only did the Swedish capital become another spatial setting for a process in which prints, with a widening set of motives, began to spread to new social groups, but this process is also intimately linked to the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment in which the use of prints was much more than just ‘decoration’; the prints being marketed in Stockholm link the material to the mind, Stockholm to Europe and the world, and in doing so also changed what an image was in the capital. The following chapter gives another example of how cosmopolitanism gradually encroached upon the very foundation of the static Godcreated world. From a beginning in the concept of Faith, Carola Nordbäck has dealt with one of the most important vicars of eighteenth-century Sweden, Anders Chydenius. At face value he was, of course, a stern defender of Christian views of the world, and its Creator, but in attempting to include cosmopolitan values in his thinking he was also questioning the limits of tolerance in the established Lutheran tradition; the static views began to crack. In the following chapter Leos Müller takes his starting point in the debates about the concept of Peace, and elaborates upon the ways in which Sweden, and other minor European countries, gradually established a way to use neutrality to gain influence and wealth during wars between the major powers in Europe. This development reached its climax during the American War of Independence, when Russia, Denmark and Sweden formed the League of Armed Neutrality. Change happened, and it is clear that Sweden towards the end of the eighteenth century was a different country compared to what it had been a century before. The most conspicuous happening of this period was, however, one that in hindsight might be viewed as a radical step backwards; the reinstatement of the absolutist monarchy by Gustav III in 1772 was in many ways an attempt to restore the mechanistic world view, rather than making something new. It is also clear that such views also existed within other circles in late eighteenth-century Swedish society. If Sweden had been a kind of powerhouse for different versions of a systematic and taxonomic way of thinking, with Linnaeus at its helm, these structures were hard to eradicate, and people remained loyal to thinking in taxonomic patterns,

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even if the prevailing cosmopolitanism constituted an expanding challenge. Karin Sennefelt has tackled this problem in a discussion about Colour, and pointed in two directions. On the one hand, the eighteenth century was a period with a crucial development of sartorial codes, in which colour gradually lost its position as a social signifier; taxonomic patterns became blurred. On the other hand, the century also witnessed colour becoming a vehicle in the establishment of one of the most enduring aspects of this systematic and taxonomic way of thinking; black became a racial category. A similar struggle is analysed by Karin Hassan Jansson in her treatment of Manners, and its links to the cosmopolitanism of the century. In discussions, starting in the 1760s, voices were heard in favour of traditional Swedish values, as these had been severely damaged by foreign influences. Luxury and new ideas were the outcome of this cosmopolitanism, and an unwanted effect became the difficulties of upholding gender as well as class demarcations. To Holger Weiss, in the following chapter, the world outside Sweden is crucial, as was how that ‘outside’ was incorporated into the realm. From a starting point in Slavery he analyses how a non-slavery society came to build a new town and port in the Caribbean using slave labour and also to establish slave legislation. Slavery is also an important aspect of the last chapter of the book, but from a different angle; in many ways Anna Cullhed is gradually opening up the door to the nineteenth century, and Romanticism, in a treatment of Compassion. Her analysis centres upon Bengt Lidner, Sweden’s ‘poet of tears’, and how he in his poetry brought the wider world into Sweden. He had, however, left behind the systematic approach of the mechanistic world view, as well as the taxonomy of Linnaeus, for much more emotional thinking; his aim seems to have been to embrace all his fellow creatures wherever they were in a boundary-less world. Perhaps he might be seen more as an emotional cosmopolitan instead of a curious one. The book ends with a short epilogue that crosses that very same line, between two distinct ways of approaching the wider world, and, thus, also ends in the nineteenth century. Before we begin our story of the Swedish cosmopolitan eighteenth century, however, we have included a short chapter by Chris Evans on Where in the World was Sweden? A Brief Guide for Foreigners.

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Chapter 2

Where in the World was Sweden? A Brief Guide for Foreigners Chris Evans

The Sweden of our times has been one of the most stable shapes on the map of Europe. In the past 100 years the Swedish state has maintained its essential territorial form whilst everything to the south and east of the Baltic has dissolved and re-formed amid war and revolution. Throughout this period of turmoil Sweden’s distinctive lozenge form has endured. It may not be as unmistakable as Italy’s ‘boot’, but it is easily identifiable nonetheless. At the start of the eighteenth century things were very different. Sweden occupied a space on the map that we do not readily recognise. Her national boundaries had changed dramatically in the previous hundred years and they were shortly to undergo a further radical redrawing. In 1700, Sweden was an empire that extended all around the Baltic: Finland was a Swedish province, so too the modern Baltic states and parts of Russia. The marshy delta on which St Petersburg was to be built was a remote corner of the Swedish empire, not the Russian. There were even Swedish territories in northern Germany: stretches of the Pomeranian coast and the Duchy of Bremen-Verden. Conversely, there were, in 1700, parts of ‘core’ Sweden that had, within living memory, belonged to another state. Skåne, the southernmost part of modern Sweden, remained a Danish province until the end of the 1650s. Stockholm was the national capital, then as now, but in other respects Sweden’s urban geography is much changed. In 1700 Helsinki was a Swedish town called Helsingfors; Tallinn, the capital of modern Estonia, then known as Reval, was garrisoned by Swedes; and Riga, once a Hanseatic German town and now the capital of Latvia, was one of Sweden’s largest cities. Göteborg was still a young city. It had only been founded in the 1620s and was not yet Sweden’s second city. That honour went to Karlskrona, an even younger urban centre, which had been established as a naval base in 1680. That Sweden’s second city should be a military citadel says much about the character of the Swedish state. As its territorial extent suggested, Sweden was a great power in 1700, one whose power was based upon ruthlessly focused military prowess. Gustav II Adolf (Gustavus Aldophus), the greatest of Sweden’s warrior-kings, transformed his country into a front-rank imperial power through his intervention in the Thirty Years War. The arrival of Swedish troops in Germany in 1630 rescued the flagging Protestant cause in sensational fashion. Modern

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Sweden is known for its neutrality; the reputation of early-modern Sweden was quite different. Gustav II Adolf, the ‘Lion of the North’, was recognised as an outstandingly innovative commander (although the scale of Sweden’s contribution to the ‘military revolution’ in early-modern Europe is a matter of dispute among modern historians). When the Peace of Westphalia brought the Thirty Years War to an end in 1648, Sweden was confirmed as the military arbiter of northern Europe. Sweden’s Age of Greatness (Stormaktstiden) had begun. The northern kingdom’s new standing was symbolised by the sumptuous Drottningholm Palace, Sweden’s Versailles, which successive monarchs used as a showcase for the latest cultural trends: the baroque formality of the late seventeenth-century gardens, the chinoiserie of the Chinese Pavilion, or the rococo touches given to the palace theatre in the late eighteenth century. At the start of the eighteenth century there was no reason to suppose that Swedish greatness was in any jeopardy. The lustre of Swedish arms was undimmed, Stockholm was a place of growing baroque splendour, and the empire had a young warrior-monarch, Carl XII, of formidable promise. Who could have known that within a decade Swedish martial power would be shattered at Poltava, deep in the Ukraine, and that Stormaktstiden would draw to a close? Empires are of necessity cosmopolitan. Sweden’s was no different. For the most part, the Swedish empire was part of the core civilisation of northern Europe – the Europe of dark bread, beer and herring – but it also extended to northern Europe’s remotest peripheries, where the nomadic Sami peoples practised a shamanism at odds with the Lutheranism of the Swedish state. (When Linnaeus mounted his expedition to the far north in the 1730s he was consciously entering an alien environment.) The Swedish state also made use of foreign experts from beyond its Baltic heartland. Scots were proverbially numerous in the Swedish officer corps, which is why the army that capitulated at Poltava included soldiers called Sinclair, Hamilton and Duwall (a Swedish rendering of Dougall). Dutch entrepreneurs were conspicuous in Sweden, as we shall see, and technicians from the Low Countries were also prominent in the service of the Swedish crown. Göteborg, for example, was laid out by Dutch town planners (which accounts for the canals that are a distinctive feature of the city). There were also Germans with specialised skills. Johann Jacob Bach, an older brother of Johann Sebastian, left his native Thuringia to join the Swedish army in 1704, signing up as a military bandsman. He was present at the catastrophe at Poltava and was one of the few who escaped the Russian encirclement. After a period as a refugee in Turkey he travelled to the adopted country he had never before seen, where he remained as a court musician until his death in Stockholm in 1722. The welcome extended to foreigners reflected the paucity of native Swedes, of whom there were just 1.5 million at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The France of Louis XIV, by way of contrast, could marshal over 21 million inhabitants, and Spain 7.5 million. Even a territorial minnow like the Dutch Republic, as much water as it was land, could boast 1.9 million citizens. Contemporary opinion was

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united in seeing a lack of numbers as a fundamental weakness. It was conventional, before Malthus raised the spectre of over-population, to make a positive association between population growth and national well-being. The state’s greatest resource was its people: ‘the chiefest, most fundamental and precious commodity’. Sweden, whose core territory was too northerly and too forested to support a densely settled agricultural population, fell short in that respect. If Sweden was to be a major power, a way of compensating for its lack of people had to be found. Compensation came in the form of a powerfully centralized state apparatus that was relentless in exploiting the human and material resources at its disposal. State service was an honoured vocation, a profession into which graduates of the universities of Lund and Uppsala flowed. Career bureaucrats staffed the agencies that superintended every aspect of economic life: the Bergscollegium, which governed the mining industry, or the Kommerscollegium, which regulated overseas trade. Needless to say, trained functionaries also filled out the hierarchy of the military departments of the state. Yet these were not bodies led by dowdy civil servants. The Bergscollegium was headed by a man of aristocratic rank, who presided over formal meetings amid baroque splendour, enthroned under a canopy of blue velvet. Servants of the state also manned the Lutheran Church, a proud symbol of national independence. Indeed, the pastor might be said to have been the face of the Swedish state at parish level – the principal voice of authority in a society that was mainly rural and in which communication was difficult. It was the duty of public servants to maximise the resources available to the state. Thus, to guarantee that the modest reserves of manpower that the Swedish state had at its disposal were used to the full, a meticulously administered system of conscription was put in place. Every parish made its contribution to the regiments that tramped across Livonia or Saxony in the Great Northern War. More important in the long term, however, was the exploitation of the country’s mineral and forest resources. The export of these resources provided the vital tax revenues that were needed to support military mobilisation. Swedish timber was abundant, of course, and was shipped abroad in huge quantities. It was an essential construction material for the growing towns and cities of north-west Europe. It was not only lumber that emerged from the Baltic forests, however. Wood-derived products like potash, pitch and tar were major items of Swedish export. In fact, Sweden dominated the European market for these products. Sweden enjoyed a still more commanding position in the supply of iron and copper. The export drive that began in the seventeenth century depended on a partnership between the Swedish state and foreigners who had access to capital and technical expertise. The Dutch Republic in its Golden Age was the obvious first port of call for both investment funds and expertise, hence the entry of Louis De Geer, a monied Amsterdamer, into Swedish industry in the 1620s. De Geer brought capital amassed in what was then the nerve centre of European capitalism, and skilled labour from his native Wallonia (southern Belgium). De Geer and other Dutch entrepreneurs were awarded wide-ranging privileges by the Swedish state, allowing them to establish a network of processing plants. De Geer’s showpiece

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estate at Leufsta was merely the grandest of these. The newcomers were therefore able to take control of Sweden’s copper resources, to set up cannon foundries when endemic warfare made the gun trade especially lucrative, and to redirect Swedish iron exports westward, first to Amsterdam, later to London. Industry and commerce were closely monitored to ensure that resources were not recklessly over-exploited and that tax revenues were fully harvested. The Bergscollegium, established in 1649, regulated production at individual ironworks to ensure that it kept in line with the timber reserves available for charcoal-making, and it maintained a register of ‘iron marks’ so that every bar of iron could be ascribed to the works at which it was made. Trade was funnelled through designated centres. Exports had to be routed through the 24 staple towns (stapelstäder), of which Stockholm and Göteborg were by far the most important. Uppstäder, occupying the next rung in the urban hierarchy, were restricted to internal trade. This was thorough mercantilism – a regulatory framework in which the duties and economic roles allotted to different groups were clearly set out. The mercantilist rigour of the Swedish state became more pronounced in the 1720s with the promulgation of the Produktplakat, a set of measures modelled on the English Navigation Laws. The Produktplakat required that non-Swedish vessels could only bring in goods from their country of origin. It was a measure intended to boost Swedish maritime capacity and succeeded admirably in doing so. Eighteenth-century Sweden was, then, a well-ordered society whose key institutions had been profoundly marked by Sweden’s ‘Age of Greatness’. Yet the curtain fell on Stormaktstiden with defeat in the Great Northern War (1699–1721). The Treaty of Nystad stripped Sweden of her trans-Baltic provinces; Riga and Reval became Russian cities. Eighteenth-century Sweden was in many ways a defeated society. That is not to say that contemporaries recognised the verdict of Poltava as final. Indeed, it was not obvious to Swedish leaders that greatness was now beyond their country’s grasp. The new policies of the 1720s, such as the Produktplakat, are a clear sign of a governing class intent on national renewal. Many in the governing elite were set on resuming hostilities with Russia and did so in the early 1740s, the late 1780s and in 1808–1809. The first two of these short-lived wars proved fruitless and the last one disastrous. It ended with Finland, which had been part of the Swedish kingdom since the middle ages, being ceded to Russia. Great Power status never returned, but the aftermath of Stormaktstiden was in other respects a period of achievement. The death of Carl XII in 1718 was followed by constitutional curbs on royal absolutism. Policy was now a matter for a council of state headed by the monarch rather than the king alone. And the council of state was responsible to an assembly (Riksdag) of the four estates: the nobility, the clergy, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry, with the noble estate as the dominant partner. The ‘Age of Liberty’ (Frihetstiden) was, in truth, an era of freedom chiefly for the aristocracy. When Gustav III restored monarchical authority in 1772 there were few complaints from the non-privileged orders. Nevertheless, Stockholm in Frihetstiden boasted a lively political culture, nourished in the coffee houses

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and taverns of the capital. Despite the chastening defeats that had concluded the Age of Greatness, Sweden maintained a confident political identity (manifested in self-identification with the Goths of antiquity) that allowed Swedes to interact with and contribute to the latest developments in European culture. Linnaeus was by no means the only Swedish scientist to attain a European-wide reputation. Sweden’s universities enjoyed international prestige, and educated Swedes could partake of German learning and German piety, engage with French belles lettres and philosophy, and exploit Stockholm’s historic links with Amsterdam, the hub of the north European book trade. Cosmopolitanism came easily to a country with an imperial heritage, a tradition of recruiting foreign expertise and an outwardlooking economy.

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LANGUAGE Language, that human tool for transferring ideas and thoughts, for enhancing our thinking, for socialising, and for perceiving the world, is one of the major prerequisites for the evolving cosmopolitanism of eighteenth-century Europe. Since the Tower of Babel and the confusion of the tongues, according to Genesis 11:1–9, human beings were divided into separate tribes with their own languages, unable to communicate efficiently with each other. Cosmopolitan endeavours tried to overlap this linguistic chasm between people. In Protestant Europe, to which Sweden belonged, the Word was of special significance, Christ as the Word, according to the Prologue of John. The teachings of God should be spread to the common people in their own language. From the invention of the printing press, there was a gradual transition from orality to literacy. Books in vernacular languages became more common in the eighteenth century. Latin began losing its position as the universal language of the learned world. Travel and commerce, and the consequent discovery of unknown cultures and tongues, forced humans to find new ways of communicating. It was also an era for interpreting signs, symbols, emblems, notes and numbers. New knowledge from books and observations of the world gave rise to new ways of dealing with human concepts. Science became occupied with a systematic classification of knowledge that tried to find the order – cosmos – of things in nature. The challenge was to find the hierarchies, the categories or ‘boxes’ of the world’s infinite number of objects, concepts and ideas. In the mechanistic world view, mankind, thinking, language and machines linked into each other. In the universal language tradition, a tradition including names such as Bacon, Descartes and Leibniz, one searched for a true cosmopolitan language, a language of the cosmos, easy to understand for all rational beings, a perfect language independent of culture and nationality, aiming at an encyclopaedia of human knowledge, a calculus of the mind by which all true sentences could be discovered. In focus here is the Swedish inventor Christopher Polhem, who constructed a formal language by which all ideas and concepts could be categorised, combined and articulated in order to enhance human communication.

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Chapter 3

The Language of Cosmos: The Cosmopolitan Endeavour of Universal Languages David Dunér

Abasaba, Abosobo, Abusubu, Abösöbö News from the Moon. There are forests, lakes and plains on the Moon, and animals, birds, fish and people. There is a language, totally perfect and crystal clear. And the mechanic Christopher Polhem (1661–1751) knows its grammar. In the manuscript Nyia tiender uthur månan (‘New tidings from the Moon’), which could have been written at the middle of the 1710s at the earliest, Polhem, the Swedish inventor known for his mining machines and his pre-industrial activities, tells of a Saami with magical knowledge who travels to the Moon, and how he talks to the Moon inhabitants and learns their language.1 The strange thing about the language on the Moon is that it is completely regular and easy to learn. We do not have to use an infinite number of words; instead, each word in the lunar language contains entire sentences and phrases in concentrated form. Nor are we forced to plod through irregular and complicated grammar, as in Latin. This language can be learnt by anyone, irrespective of origin, and whether people come from the Moon, the Earth or the most far-flung environs of the Universe. It is a universal language, the language of the Universe, the Cosmos, a truly cosmopolitan language that can be understood by all rational beings, independent of culture and nationality. Learned people, writes Polhem, have investigated and observed the strange figures and shapes of the planets using telescopes. The Moon, which is the closest and apparently largest celestial body, has been particularly scrutinised and been seen to be covered by forests, lakes and plains. As it has forests and lakes, Polhem further reasons, there must also be animals, birds and fish. And as there are plains, there must be people, as no plains can exist without people having cleared the forests. Polhem was not the only person in the world of learning to hold the idea of life on the Moon. It was also held by many contemporary scientists and philosophers not unknown to him, such as Bernard de Fontenelle in Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (1686) or Christiaan Huygens in Cosmotheoros (1698), 1   Christopher Polhem, ‘Nyia tiender uthur månan’, Christopher Polhems efterlämnade skrifter IV. Varia, ed. Bengt Löw (Uppsala, 1954), 338–342.

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and many others. Once, following Nicolaus Copernicus, the Earth was no longer the centre of the Universe, once Galileo Galilei had aimed his telescope towards the Moon and found it a rough globe with mountains and seas, once physicotheologists were convinced that the all-powerful Creator must have filled the entire Universe with life, then the assumption of life on other planets was not too far-fetched. Surely there should be people on the Moon. Or are we quite alone in the enormous Universe? The trip to the Moon happened as follows, Polhem relates: A Saami, who had been given the task thanks to his knowledge of magic, tied his magic drum on his back, flung himself flat on the ground and asked that no one touch him until he rose again (Figure 3.1). Some hours passed. When he woke up, he started to tell what he had seen on the Moon. It turned out to be a country almost like here, with animals, birds and people. The wise men who had witnessed the event were not entirely satisfied with the tale, as they suspected that it might be a fabrication. So they asked him if he could not travel there again, but this time against a greater payment. They particularly requested him to learn their language, and to stay there a longer time to acquire more knowledge and give a more detailed description. The Saami did not have to think long about the offer. Soon, he started his second trip to the Moon. This time he was gone for all of seven months. When he came back, he gave such a detailed description that it was difficult to think that all could be pure lies and invention. Whatever the facts of the matter were, he soon started telling about the language of the lunar inhabitants.

Figure 3.1

A Saami with his drum

Source: Johannes Schefferus, Lapponia (1673).

‘It was impossible for me,’ said the flying Saami, ‘to learn their language in their company, as they were frightened of me as of a troll or a ghost.’ They had never seen anything like his body, face or clothes. ‘I therefore made myself invisible, in order to listen to their conversations unnoticed. I flew from one place to another, and finally arrived at a school, where the lunar children were being taught

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a language that their learned people used.’ One of the curious gentlemen then interrupted and asked whether it could have been Latin? ‘I do not know whether it was Latin or any other language, as I do not understand Latin,’ answered the Saami. ‘But I have heard that it takes a long time to learn Latin, but this language of the Moon you could learn quickly, nor do you need as many words, as each word expresses a whole sentence.’ Here, the Saami’s account started to be slightly unclear, continues Polhem. It was a pity that he had never studied or understood grammar, as this would have made it possible to learn a bit more about the lunar people’s language. But the curious gentlemen carefully recorded all the words the Saami had heard there on the Moon, and tried to bring order to them. It was then discovered that it was not a language like ours; a language that appears to originate among children and unlearned people; that lacks a solid foundation, and is improved a bit as time goes by, just like when an old, irregular city is turned into a regular one without moving the old houses. The lunar language, on the other hand, originates with learned people, who have built it on a new foundation. In more detail, the lunar language is built on the following bases, according to Polhem’s interpretation of the Saami’s tale: Syllables in their language correspond to whole words in our language. For example, abasaba means: ‘the great space of the universe stretches out endlessly on all sides’. Breaking this down, ab means ‘spatium’ (space), ba ‘universale’ (the great universe), so that aba means ‘spatium universale’ (the great space of the universe). And further, sab is a verb that means ‘expendere’ (stretch out), ba is an adverb that means ‘continuè or indefinitè’ (endlessly on all sides), and from this we get abasaba ‘spatium universum expandit se indefinitè’. From this, we find that the general rule is that when a consonant and a vowel are put together, this takes on a special meaning, irrespective of whether it is an adjective, adverb, noun or verb. This differs from our language, considers Polhem, where words are used more metaphorically or allegorically and not in their real fundamental sense. In Nyia tiender uthur månan, the journey to the Moon forms the framework story on the basis of which Polhem describes his vision of the perfect language. The Saamian space travel is a utopian tale. He uses the literary techniques of the utopian genre, where foreign cultures or imaginary worlds are used to say something about the contemporary world, society or culture in which the writer lives. He wants to send a message or a wish for another world, to express criticism of the only known existing world. Life on the Moon is cocking a snook at Earth in the satirist Cyrano de Bergerac’s Histoire comique contenant les états et empires de la Lune (1657), for example. Reality can be different. It does not have to be what it currently is. We could have another language; a language without ambiguities, difficulties, irregularities; a cosmopolitan language that bridges the chasms between cultures, peoples and countries. It is just such a cosmopolitan idea that Polhem is expressing in the tale about the flying Saami. Using far-away Moon people and exotic Saami, known for their magic abilities, imagination could be given free rein and thoughts could roam off to new universes of ideas. Journeys to other worlds say more about the traveller’s starting point than his destination. The

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traveller’s world is shining through, just as with Polhem, where we can understand from the lunar language that the Moon people appear to be Cartesians in terms of natural sciences and Aristotelians in philosophy, which can also be interpreted as the ideas of Descartes and Aristotle being permanently true and universal, and thus having to be reflected in all universal languages of the Universe. The imaginary journeys of the time went to the Moon and the planets, to the country of Erehwon, to the lands of the Antipodeans, countries beyond the sea, unknown islands, to underground worlds, worlds that were usually peopled by rational beings with highly developed cultures. Actual journeys within Earthly geography gave rise to meetings with the unusual, the strange; different ways of living and speaking were discovered, and strange and wonderful languages heard. The meetings became self-reflecting, gave opportunities for comparisons between habits, religions and languages. On the imaginary journeys, there are nearly always descriptions of languages, which were also easy to learn and superior to all existing languages. For example, the seafarer Lemuel Gulliver learnt to understand the nasal and throat sounds of the Houyhnhnms in 10 weeks.2 Among the more well-known moon journeys is Francis Godwin’s utopian novel The Man in the Moone: Or a Discovrse of a Voyage Thither (1638), where the lunarnaut Domingo Gonsales, ‘The speedy Messenger’, journeyed to the Moon with a flock of large birds trained for the purpose on the way to their winter quarters on the Moon. He talks about the tones of the lunar language, which is reminiscent of the tonal system and musical ciphers of Chinese. There was a form of cipherlike universal writing, denoted with musical notes, ‘the lunatique language’, a language not in words and letters, but in tones. The universal language constructor John Wilkins also wrote about journeys to the Moon, reflected further on Domingo Gonsales’ discovery of musical lunar language, and also on the possibility of communicating with friends who are far away.3 Conversations and discussions became a musical experience, like a concert in tones. The imaginary languages could also be based on gestures, on hands and fingers, or on objects, as in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Often, the starting point is concrete objects in nature. For example, Gabriel de Foigny, in La terre australe connue (1676), starts from the five elements.4 Learning the foreign languages, and constructing your own language, was at the same time a way of learning something about the world, bridging the gap between the language and the world, the words and the objects, the inner and outer. Polhem’s journey to the Moon was probably written down in conjunction with the learned society Collegium curiosorum, ‘the society of the eager to learn’, who   Jonathan Swift, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, … (London, 1726), IV, 36. 3   John Wilkins, The Discovery of a World in the Moone … (London, 1638); John Wilkins, Mercury: Or, the Secret and Swift Messenger … (London, 1641). 4   Gabriel de Foigny, La terre australe connue (1676), ed. Pierre Ronzeaud (Paris, 1990), 162. 2

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met at the beginning of 1711 in the Swedish university town of Uppsala. The society had a great interest in Lapland, its mountains, nature, inhabitants and language. One of the members, the botanist and philologist Olof Rudbeck the Younger, had himself carried out an expedition to Lapland in 1695 and, as a language researcher, thought he had found a relationship between Saami and Hebrew, as mentioned in a letter to the learned Englishman John Wallis, among others.5 In the circle around Bokwettsgillet (‘The Book Learning Guild’), there was also a fascination for the Chinese language, for manuscripts from Tartary, runes and other sign systems. The university librarian and philologist Eric Benzelius the Younger was an expert in Gothic, corresponded with Leibniz about issues of philology and also collected Swedish dialect words. In spring 1711, the librarian’s brother Henric was sent off on an expedition to Lapland on behalf of the Guild.6 At home in Uppsala, the Guild may very well have come into contact with one or two future Lapland priests of Saami origins. The Universal Language Polhem constantly returned to the idea of a ‘universal language’, that is to say a perfect language that can be spoken and understood by everybody irrespective of education or origin. The preoccupation with a universal language has to do with his own faltering educational history, his own difficulties in reading books, understanding Latin and writing correctly. But this did not stop him from writing masses of drafts on every subject from technology and physics to economics, pedagogics and philosophy of language. Christopher Polhem was born on the Swedish island of Gotland in 1661.7 At an early age he became fatherless, and had to take care of himself. His technological skills were discovered in his late twenties, and he then began an astonishingly successful career as a mining engineer, inventor and manufacturer. He travelled throughout Europe, his technical solutions were to be used within the mining industry in Germany and Norway as well as in Sweden, and he received flattering offers from England and Russia. Polhem’s projects are quite different from the early seventeenth century’s linguistic mystery and kabbalah, or the rune research and searching for the Gothic language that fascinated the Swedish language researchers Johannes Bureus and Georg Stiernhielm. Instead, Polhem started with the contemporary interest 5   Olof Rudbeck the Younger, Epistola ad Johannem Wallisium continens fasciculum vocum Lapo-Hebraicarum, data Upsaliae ad d. 23 Junii 1703 (Uppsala, 1703); Bokwetts Gillets protokoll, ed. Henrik Schück (Uppsala, 1918), 15 May 1724, 106. 6   Carl-Otto von Sydow (ed.), ‘Henric Benzelius’ brev till Eric Benzelius d.y. från Lapplandsresan 1711’, Lychnos 1962, 154–161. 7   David Dunér, Tankemaskinen: Polhems huvudvärk och andra studier i tänkandets historia (Nora, 2012); David Dunér, ‘Daedalus of the North: Swedenborg’s Mentor Christopher Polhem’, The New Philosophy, July–December 2010.

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in the universally valid, the unambiguous, in logic, in order and classification. Fundamental problems at this time concerned the logical method, the systematic classification of knowledge, and the construction of an encyclopaedia of knowledge. It is also a cosmopolitan project that tries to breach the borders between natural languages, peoples, countries and nations. My contribution to the research into the history of universal languages is to introduce a cognitive semantic analysis of their construction and function. In addition to the traditional view of universal languages,8 I wish to show that they have their origin in human cognitive prerequisites, such as our ability to categorise and to use metaphors in our thinking. They all unite the cognitive ability to categorise reality with the interpretation of signs of the baroque period. The idea of universal language is a typical example of categorical reasoning, where each object and concept was to be directed to its particular and only correct container. The immeasurable depth of existence, the world’s infinite number of objects, concepts and ideas, cannot, must not, constitute a chaos, but a cosmos. The starting point of the idea of universal language was that each object should have a designation; that there are a limited number of concepts that exist in fixed relationships with each other, in a hierarchy where they are inferior or superior to each other. Substances were divided into classes, in a hierarchy from the highest to the lowest. This subdivision of classes was used within Aristotelian philosophy, and not least in the dichotomy tables of Ramism, which are called ‘Porphyrian trees’ after Porphyry’s Isagoge (200 ad).9 A Porphyrian tree was an attempt at reducing the labyrinth of reality to a two-dimensional tree, a way of taming the labyrinth of the world. The categorisation and classification of objects and concepts gained particular importance in the encyclopaedic tradition, a time of lists, lexicons, a striving for universality and totality. Johann Heinrich Alsted, Athanasius Kircher and Gaspar Schott categorised and searched for a systematic classification of the world and human knowledge. By placing objects in their correct categories, a syllogistic logic could be applied in order to create new knowledge. Others who

8   Paul Cornelius, Languages in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Imaginary Voyages (Genève, 1965); Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London, 1966); James Knowlson, Universal Language Schemes in England and France 1600–1800 (Toronto and Buffalo NY, 1975); Mary M. Slaughter, Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1982); Gerhard F. Strasser, Lingua Universalis: Kryptologie und Theorie der Universalsprachen im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1988); Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language (Oxford, 1995); Paolo Rossi, Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language (Chicago IL, 2000). 9   Aristotle, Analytikon ysteron, 2.13.96b25–97b14; Hugh Tredennick and Edward S. Forster (eds), Posterior Analytics; Topica (Cambridge MA and London, 1966); Umberto Eco, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Bloomington IN, 1986), 80, 84.

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dreamt of a universal language were Francis Bacon, Johann Joachim Becher, René Descartes and Johann Christopher Sturm.10 The success of symbolic mathematics, algebra and arithmetic in manipulating symbols in order to reach new knowledge about reality became a precept for universal mathematics. Inspired by differential and integral calculus and probability calculation, the idea of the universal calculus was developed, which was to calculate all knowledge, even that which fell outside the domains of mathematics. Among the foremost examples of this was Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, one of those who developed infinitesimal calculus. What he does, apart from a categorisation of reality, is to add the idea that the universal language should also express the relationships between the ideas in order to form the basis for the art of invention, a calculus. Following him we find the German philosopher Christian von Wolff’s ‘ars characteristica combinatoria’. With its signs for objects and perceptions we could calculate new learning, create new knowledge and discover hidden truths. I would say that the universal mathematics is based on an underlying basic metaphor that thinking is mathematically calculating, to think is to calculate. Just as compound numbers can be broken down into 10 digits, compound concepts and ideas could be broken down into individual ideas. The concordance between the languages, words, objects, sounds, signs and images was one of the cornerstones of the Czech pedagogue Jan Amos Komenský’s pedagogy, as in Orbis sensualium pictus (1658). In his pansophy, Komenský, who has become more known under the name Comenius, searched for a universal method, a logic, a language for the universal wisdom, a philosophical alphabet, a total encyclopaedia, in his conviction that reality can be reduced to some few basic elements, that there is a harmony between creation, the materia, and the intellect and language.11 The encyclopaedia was to be a mirror image of nature. The perfect language, Comenius considered, aimed to unite the idea with the structure of the Universe, constitute a correspondence between words and objects, and be a way of achieving human reconciliation and peace between religions. The idea of the universal language was not just about semantic problems, but could also be a way of deciphering the divine alphabet with which nature is written. But Polhem totally lacks the religious arguments for the universal language. His universal language is not an appeal for peace in order to overcome religious disputes, and perhaps more unexpectedly, his universal language does not start from any expressed idea of the divine order as the foundation for the objects, the words and the concepts.

10   Johann Joachim Becher, Character, pro notitia linguarum universali … (Frankfurt, 1661); Descartes to Mersenne, 20 November 1629, René Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes. 1, Correspondance: Avril 1622–Février 1638, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery (Paris, 1897), 80ff.; Gaspar Schott, Technica curiosa, sive mirabilia artis, … (Würzburg and Nürnberg, 1664), VII, 483ff.; Johann C. Sturm, Collegium experimentale, sive curiosum … I (Nürnberg, 1676), 74–99. 11   Rossi, Logic and the Art, 133–138, 146, 154.

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The universal language was a revolt against the unclear, ungraspable idea. As such, it was linked to rhetoric, the art of memory, the theory of translation and the interest in polyglot lexicons. English language philosophers led the way. Perhaps Polhem’s meeting with John Wallis in Oxford in 1695 led to a conversation about a universal language.12 Polhem probably had difficulty making himself understood, as he knew neither Latin nor English. Apart from mathematics, Wallis was also occupied with linguistics and cryptography, and had discussed the achievability of a universal language with George Dalgarno and John Wilkins, two of the foremost advocates of the idea of a universal language. In England there was also Francis Lodwick, who wrote ‘An Essay towards an Universal Alphabet’ in Philosophical Transactions (1686); an alphabet that would include all sounds and letters in all languages. There was also Thomas Urquhart, who wrote works with the enigmatic titles Ekskubalauron (1652) and Logopandecteision (1653), and furthermore Cave Beck’s The Universal Character (1657). This searching for a universal language can be understood against the background of Bacon’s new science, the experimental and mathematical physics of the scientific revolution and Comenius’ utopian teachings and their influence on philosophical, political and religious culture. The foundation also includes the classification system of Aristotelian philosophy. The perfect artificial language would create a system of characters, communicable and independent of the natural languages, which presumed that the inner understanding of objects was the same for all people, while the names of the natural languages were random and arbitrary. The language would alleviate all the ambiguous and irrational expressions of the Babylonian confusion of tongues. It would be a more efficient way of communicating and facilitate the conveyance of ideas. Each character would correspond to a particular object, which would lead to the total encyclopaedia; a complete and ordered listing and classification of all objects and concepts that exist in the Universe. In particular, they were looking for the simple concepts that could be combined in different ways to create compound concepts. Polhem’s universal language is closest to the encyclopaedic language constructions of Dalgarno and Wilkins. They tried to put together an entire encyclopaedia, which included creating a new alphabet where each letter was to signify a simple concept. Among other things, they made detailed classifications of the elements, stones, metals, plants and animals. Dalgarno, in Ars signorum, vulgo character universalis et lingua philosophica (1661), classifies all ideas and objects, divided into different classes. A new language, Wilkins considers in An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), would facilitate trade between the countries of the world, improve our knowledge about nature, and disseminate knowledge about the true religion. As for all universal languages, one of the goals was to get away from the confusion of tongues that had arisen during the building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). The variation in 12   Samuel Buschenfelt, Reseanteckningar 1694–1697, Uppsala University Library (UUB), X 366, 61f.

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letters is, furthermore, an appendage to the confusion in Babel. Wilkins’ universal language characters shall not denote words, but objects and concepts. A first step towards establishing such a philosophical language is exactly listing all objects and concepts that are to be denoted. The starting point is therefore that all people have the same inner concepts and understanding of the objects, but that they differ in how they express them. The names consist of temporary sounds and words that have been agreed on. The characters shall have relationships with each other, shall represent the objects, they shall be ordered, shall help memory and understanding. The author and antiquarian Thomas Baker polemised in one chapter of his popular book Reflections upon Learning (1699) against the idea of ‘a Real Character and Philosophical Language’, that is, Wilkins’ attempt at a universal language. Baker finds this as high-flown and impossible as Wilkins’ flying wagon and journey to the Moon.13 The natural scientist and later spiritualist Emanuel Swedenborg is the best and only known concrete example of anyone in Sweden, apart from Polhem, to have tried to construct a universal language. One further person could be added to these two; a name to which I will have reason to return – Carl Linnaeus. Swedenborg made drafts of a universal language in conjunction with his studies in anatomy and physiology while seeking to find the abode of the soul.14 In the manuscript Philosophia universalium characteristica et mathematica (1740), he tries to construct a philosophical language with letters or characters for general concepts. S represents blood, A artery, M muscle and N nerve. In addition, there are the following characters: a for a continuous compound, nc for continuous substances such as fibres, muscles and membranes, and nf for adjoining compounds through contact, as in liquids, water, oil, blood and air. Quantity is of two kinds: size (continuous quantity) Qc, and number (discrete quantity) Qd. In terms of the maximum and minimum quantities, the smallest has the unit 1, medium size 2 and the largest 3. Finally, Swedenborg provides an example: AAAQc3 designates the large artery or the powerful heart.15 Swedenborg’s posthumous work De anima (1742), which is an investigation of the pure intellect, provides an attempt at universal mathematics, with the help of which it should be possible to calculate all scientific propositions.16 We know that ideas are a kind of change of state in   Thomas Baker, Reflections upon Learning, …, 5th ed. (London, 1714), 19f.   David Dunér, The Natural Philosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Study in the

13 14

Conceptual Metaphors of the Mechanistic World-View (Dordrecht, 2013); David Dunér, ‘Swedenborg’s Spiral’, Studia Swedenborgiana, October 2002, Vol. 12, No. 4. 15   Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientific and Philosophical Treatises (1716–1740), ed. William R. Woofenden (Bryn Athyn PA, 1992), 165–71. 16   Emanuel Swedenborg, Regnum animale anatomice, physice et philosophice perlustratum, cujus pars septima de anima agit, ed. Immanuel Tafel (Tübingen and London, 1849), 255–258; transl. Norbert H. Rogers and Alfred Acton, Rational Psychology (Bryn Athyn PA, 2001), n. 562–567; Emanuel Swedenborg, Oeconomia regni animalis in transactiones divisa II (Amsterdam, 1741), n. 206, 211.

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the brain cells. If we can describe these changes geometrically as circular and spiral forms, it should also be possible to use a calculus to carry out calculations with these ideas. In the end, the search for a universal language concludes in his correspondence theory, which provides a key to the Word. In the spiritual world, it is possible to understand each other irrespective of where we are from, whether we are from Europe or Asia, or from another time. He travels to the Moon and the planets in the spiritual world, converses with Martians, Venusians and other extraterrestrials using a language of correspondences, a speech that flows from thought and consists of concepts.17 The reason is that their language does not consist of words, but of concepts. It is a universal language.18 The seventeenth and early eighteenth century was an era for interpreting signs, symbols, emblems, musical notes, Arabic and Roman digits, signs for measures and weights, metals and liquids, stars and planets. There was choreography, body language, gestures, the facial expressions of deaf people, sign language, the movements of hands and fingers, pointing with the finger and counting on fingers and toes. The universal language arose in the transition from an oral to a written culture. It was not just a question of listening, but also of seeing; seeing the structure of the language, seeing the thought. Characters referred to something beyond themselves. Everything is a weave of character relationships. Something represents something else. One of the models for the universal language was Egyptian hieroglyphics, which fascinated many through their ambiguity and enigma, but which were assumed to be characters that represented an entire concept, that is to say they were ideographic. The hieroglyphic ideograms were images in the mind, graphic representations of ideas and concepts. Kircher, like Leibniz, wanted to see clues to a universal language in the assumed ideographic nature of Chinese characters. In Polygraphia nova et universalis ex combinatoria arte detecta (1663), Kircher attempted to develop an image or symbol language, a pasigraphy that could be read by all. The dream was to rise above the actual reality to the formal, law-bound world. The universal language would apply for all of humanity, be independent of national languages, cultures and humankind’s cognitive prerequisites. What is slightly ironic in the circumstances is that their attempts at a universal language to a great degree became dependent on how their own Eurocentric culture arranged the world. The universal languages were constructed by Europeans in the belief that they were making a classification of objects that was valid for all of humanity, irrespective of culture and origin. However, the categorisation of the world and concepts is often bound by culture and is not really about the ‘true’ classification of actual objects. But this was not at all how they saw it. The division into classes and concepts was not anything arbitrary. In fact, the concepts and characters of the 17   Emanuel Swedenborg, De telluribus in mundo nostri solari, quæ vocantur planetæ (London, 1758), n. 95. 18   Emanuel Swedenborg, Arcana celestia quæ in Scriptura Sacra seu Verbo Domini sunt detecta I (London, 1749), n. 1637.

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universal language were to correspond to the objects in reality, in the same way as the hands on a clock corresponded to the movements of the Universe. It was therefore assumed to be a similarity between the structure of the Universe and human thinking, an analogy between the order of the world and the grammatical order between the symbols in language. The concepts were a reflection of the Universe, and the ordered classification reflected the cosmic harmony. The designations and relationships of the universal language corresponded with, was isomorphic to, the inherent characteristics and relationships of the objects. Spectacles for the Blind Language researchers in Sweden, as in other countries in Europe, were looking for a common language, the original language, the language that had once been spoken by the first humans. Adam’s names for the objects should be what reflected the true nature of the objects. Then the Tower of Babel was built, after which all languages became distortions of the true, original meaning, which led to misunderstandings and discord. But was it Hebrew that was this true original language, or was it Swedish? The Swedish physician and historian Olof Rudbeck the Elder, who has become known for his identification of Sweden as Atlantis, had his own theory about the origin of letters and the art of writing. They originated in the Swedish runes. In a way, there was already a universal language – Latin. But it was not perfect. The artificial universal languages can be seen as attempts at breaking the dominance of Latin as the lingua franca, with its socially exclusive character. Latin constituted a chasm that was difficult to bridge between elite culture and popular culture, and locked out women, craftsmen, farmers and a smith and carpenter like Polhem. He often criticised Latin as an obstacle to thinking and the sciences. Also, Latin did not chime with his cult of utility, and his eagerness to disseminate new findings and inventions to the broader population. Because of his own wavering educational path, he had great concern for the teaching of young people. Learning Latin or other subjects by reeling off texts by heart he thought was not worth much. It was like giving a book to someone who could not read, or spectacles to a blind person.19 Instead, he advocated teaching in Swedish with Swedish books and with practical exercises. During Polhem’s time, battles for and against Latin, the own and the foreign were being fought. The criticism was often that Latin took too long to learn, and that it was of no use in everyday life, combined with a patriotic streak and a striving for educating the population. In France, England and Germany there was a gradual move away from Latin to the national languages in a scientific 19   Samuel E. Bring, ‘A Contribution to the Biography of Christopher Polhem’, in Christopher Polhem: The Father of Swedish Technology, transl. William A. Johnson (Hartford CT, 1963), 83.

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context during the second half of the seventeenth century. Swedish also rose up as a scientific language, not least through the efforts of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the middle of the eighteenth century, whose publications were being disseminated in Swedish, and where preservation of the Swedish language was keenly supported. However, abstract terms were lacking in the national languages. New scientific words were taken primarily from Latin. Latin was a living language, and still had power over thought. The interest in a universal language therefore coincides with the weakening of Latin, combined with a striving for universality beyond the barriers of national interests. Many also considered Latin to be unpedagogic; an obstacle to learning in the classroom, constituting psychological and physical maltreatment of schoolboys. Grammar was literally banged into them. The heartless tyranny of the language of the Romans was surely felt by the probably dyslexic Christopher Polhem during his brief time at the German School in Stockholm. Latin hindered him from reaching that which he really wanted to learn. As a junior farmhand at Vansta Manor outside Stockholm, he dreamed about studying. He realised he would have to learn Latin in order to develop his knowledge of mechanics. Therefore he made an agreement with a priest, bartering lessons in Latin against the construction of a wall clock.20 But he never really managed to learn Latin. There is not one single manuscript in Latin in Polhem’s writing. Instead, he invented his own language. aeiouåäöybdgvptkfjlnmrsh Polhem made his drafts for a universal language at a time of interest in linguistics and national languages, the sounds, the connections between words and objects, the characters and the characterised. In the artificial languages of the time, there is also a striving towards the cosmopolitan. Linguistically, both semantically and phonetically, Polhem’s universal language emphasises a number of advantages. The universal language should be pedagogic, more efficient, shorter than the ordinary language, regular and based on a firm foundation. The manuscript Nomina rerum naturalium per philosophiam novam (undated), which despite its title is written in Swedish, provides a fairly good picture of what such a universal language could look like.21 Apart from the arguments for a universal language, also notable is the starting point in sounds, such as vowels, consonants and what he calls ‘semi-vowels’, as well as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ consonants. Thereafter follows a grammar and a lexicon. At an expressive level, a lexicon, a phonology and a syntax are necessary. As in most universal languages, great emphasis is placed

20   Christopher Polhem, ‘Commercie-rådets herr Christ: Polhems lefvernes lopp i korthet af honom sielf uppsatt’, Polhems skrifter IV, 397f. 21   Christopher Polhem, ‘Nomina rerum naturalium per philosophiam novam’, Polhems skrifter IV, 333–338.

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on nouns, thereafter verbs, after which adjectives are added. The senses and the elements play a central role in Polhem’s universal language. The craving to learn different things in natural sciences tempts many to start reading, begins Polhem. But the difficulties soon make us tire, so that we often stop half way. This is because we have to plough through innumerable letters and words that are irrelevant, and which merely tire the eyes and the brain and put a strain on health. Instead, he speculates, we could invent a new way of writing books, where words and sentences are concentrated, so that an entire book could be summarised on a sheet or two ‘because then a large book would not so easily frighten many from reading it, as now usually happens, and then people would gain knowledge quicker than otherwise’. This is, says Polhem, ‘a thing that would be no less useful and desirable than finding perpetuum mobile and lapis philosophorum which surely are impossible in themselves, but none the less has led many to spend both time and welfare upon’. Many learned men have ‘put their brains to work thereon, but like me, have stopped half way’. But like all goldmakers who have lived and died with the idea that it should be possible some time in the future, ‘therefore I also do the same’. It is indeed possible, says Polhem, to create a new language with a better foundation than those that have their beginning in children and common people. The language is like a city, with blocks, buildings and lanes. To begin with, nobody bothered about streets and lanes, but placed the houses on suitable stones anchored in the ground, which has made cities ‘so bewildering to find the way home that Nero was forced to burn down Rome entirely’.22 Now it is clear, that in the same way as irregular cities and forests make us lose our way, so it is with an irregular language, which is more difficult to remember than a completely regular one. Laying a foundation is necessary before a house can be built, and not just a visible foundation above ground level, but also an invisible one underneath the ground. In the same way that ‘the stones in the wall do not stick together well without mud, chalk and sand’, so consonants must also be linked together with vowels. The consonants are divided up into four pairs, which he call ‘hard’ and ‘smooth’ respectively (that is to say unvoiced and voiced), p b, t d, k g, f v. The various letters represent different natural objects: p stands for plebs or populus (people), b for bruta (animals), t for terra (earth), i.e. hard materials, d for the soft earth, k for growing bodies such as trees and shrubs, g for grass and spices, f for all heavenly phenomena and tangible objects, and v for everything that is pure stories and invention. All things must therefore start from these letters. To these can then be added the ‘semi-vowels’ (which most closely can be understood as ‘long’ consonant sounds that link together plosives or closed consonants), s, l, n, m, r, which represent our five senses, i.e. s sight, l hearing, n smell, m taste and r touch. Vowels placed before the semi-vowels signify various quality or quantity 22   Cf. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, ‘Nero’, De vita Caesarum, Chapter 38; ed. J.C. Rolfe, Suetonius I (Cambridge MA and London, 1979).

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degrees, for example a is the first, greatest or most prominent, while u represents the worst, least or least prominent. The degrees become A, ä, E, y, I, ö, O, å, V. As we have now got the stones and chalk for the first foundation under the ground, we can now begin to put the letters together into syllables. Painters and dyers say that they have 80 different kinds of colour. These could now be named with three, at most four, letters. As the colours are distinguished by sight, the first letter of the colours is S. The shade of the colour is denoted by the next following vowel, a white, e yellow, i blue and o red. A mixture of white and yellow is ä, green (which is a mixture of blue and yellow) becomes y, ö stands for violet and å for liver brown. These colours are then graded using the nine different degrees of vowels that can be placed before S. In this way, 81 different colours can be denoted. In the same way, a musician can also find his designations in terms of hearing, the pharmacist in terms of smell, a cook or a chemist in terms of taste and a mechanic in terms of touch. Therefore, in this way it can soon be seen to what extent an object is useful or useless, whether it is to be seen, heard, smelled or tasted, etc., or which virtue or vice it has. In summary, by using this method you can use only four syllables to produce 262,410 words or names, but ‘so many will surely never be needed’. A person searching for a certain word can refer to a lexicon in five parts ‘where a painter, a musician, an apothecary, a master chef and a mathematician can get the greatest insight hereinto’. In these dreams about a more compressed language, we notice the pressurised, busy Polhem who was short on time. It is too much work and takes much too long to read books. His own invented language is reminiscent of a kind of speed writing for a busy civil servant, which leads thoughts to the abbreviated or speed writing, stenography and tachygraphy that was developed particularly in England during the seventeenth century. Schott’s Technica curiosa (1664) and the Swedish civil servant Åke Rålamb’s Adelig öfning (1690) teach the art of writing as fast as we speak, and writing everything on one sheet of paper when others need 20.23 In true Rudbeckian spirit, Rålamb finds that this art has its origin in the Swedish region of Hälsingland. It is also Polhem the engineer that is speaking. Language is not something we are born with, but comes from ‘art’, practice and culture. Philosophers are needed to construct a new universal language, regular as a baroque city. Spavilafk ikav Sve ‘In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, and the earth was empty and void, and the spirit of God hovered over the depths.’ In a collection of fragments titled Försök till en ny och kort skrifkonst (undated), Polhem applies his universal 23   Åke Rålamb, Utaf adelig öfning Thacheographia eller en kånst at skrifwa så fort som man talar: Så och på ett ark papper skrifwa så mycket som en annan på 20 … (Stockholm, [1690]).

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language to the Book of Genesis. As the greatest and most complete of spirits, God must be called Spav, and if we say he created or executed it, we say ila, and then heaven f and the earth k. The earth was ika, empty and void, v. The spirit of God must be called Sve, and ‘[h]overing is a movement that must be done with the help of the body and arms’.24 Therefore: Spavilafk ikav Sve. Trying out a universal language on a religious text was common, as with Dalgarno and Wilkins, and as with other linguistic comparisons between natural languages. For example, Dalgarno’s Genesis starts like this: ‘Dan semu, Sava samesa Nam tηn Nom. Tηn nom avesa sof-shana tηn draga, tηn gromu avesa ben mem sηf bafu: tηn υv sηf Sava damesa ben mem sηf nimmi.’25 The universal language was intended to capture the world, nature, heaven and creation. The world is a language, a system of signs that can be combined and deciphered. Objects can be made into lists of everything in existence. By classifying nature, we can get a grip on it, create order out of chaos, and find the gaps in our knowledge. There is a constant dichotomy between art and nature, usefulness and uselessness, virtue and sin in Polhem’s thinking. A soft consonant represents nature and a hard consonant art and human culture. The five senses are particularly central to the classification of objects. Objects are graded according to light and dark, number, size, time, use, virtue, agreeableness and superiority. Polhem’s Orda teckn på naturens materialer och dess egenskaper (1710–1711) forms a theory of general physics in a single system, where the physical principles could be classified using a deductive method (figures 3.2 and 3.3).26 This is Polhem’s longest universal language draft, and it goes through his entire theory of physics, not least his theories of materials and of particles. This language should be no more difficult to learn than other foreign and unknown languages. As is well known, he said, no book knowledge could be learnt simply through the mother tongue, nor could anyone be called learned without understanding more than at least one other language. He imagines a cosmopolitan language independent of the national languages, ‘almost as is done with digits, which all nationals can learn easily, so long as all numbers are written using the digits, but if they were written with letters using the proper names in their own languages, such as One thousand seven hundred and thirty five, a foreigner would not understand it as easily as 1735’. The character system forces him to think hard, to work out what the various character combinations represent. With the word character system, he can also fill in the gaps in knowledge. It is a way of thinking, a way of remembering. He can 24   Christopher Polhem, Försök till en ny och kort skrifkonst, Royal Library, Stockholm (KB), N 60, fol. 37f. 25   George Dalgarno, Ars signorum, vulgo character universalis et lingua philosophica (London, 1661), 118; reprinted in George Dalgarno on Universal Language: The Art of Signs (1661), The Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor (1680), and the Unpublished Papers, ed. David Cram and Jaap Maat (Oxford, 2001), 276. 26   Christopher Polhem, Orda teckn på naturens materialer och dess egenskaper. KB, X 519, fol. 1–61; transcribed by Jacob Troilius, KB, X 521, 1–62.

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say quite a lot about ilo, the air in the water, oli, the water in the air, and olo, the water in itself. It is more difficult to say anything about eli, the ether in the air, and even more difficult to do the opposite, say something about ile, the air in the ether.

Figure 3.2

El, a swinging ball under water or a turning planet in the ether

Source: Christopher Polhem, Orda teckn på naturens materialer och dess egenskaper (c. 1710–1711), fol. 7v. Photography: National Library of Sweden, Stockholm.

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Table of universal characters

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Source: Christopher Polhem, Korta ordatecken på naturens materialer och dess egenskaper (c. 1710–1711). Photography: National Library of Sweden, Stockholm.

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Polhem made several drafts of similar character systems and tables.27 In two essays submitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences around 1740, Polhem tries to create a universal language for flowers, as an expressed alternative to Linnaeus’ taxonomy.28 The botanists, pharmacists and cooks were to be spared long plant names, spared reading thick folios, but could still find out all about the characteristics of a plant. But Polhem’s botanical system does not say much about the morphology of plants. Stamens and pisti, entire or pinnate leaves he does not bother about. Instead, he concentrates on what the senses can say about the plants – not least what pharmacists smell and cooks taste – what use, virtue and pleasure they can provide. It is the patriotic cult of utility in the anthropocentric utilitarianism of the Swedish Age of Liberty that provides the categories. Plants are classified according to whether they grow in the wild forest, in vegetable plots or botanical gardens, whether they are sold by the load, the pound or the ounce. For Linnaeus, as opposed to Polhem, the virtues, smell, taste or the practical use are worthless characteristics. Instead, Linnaeus searches for the ideally typical, not the realistic. Leaves can be divided up into ideally typical shapes, such as orbiculate, ovate, lanceolate, cordate, reniform and so on. As the same time, we can regard Linnaeus’ sexual system and nomenclature as an outrunner of the universal languages’ classification of reality. There is the categorical thinking, the labelling, the connection between name and object. The binary nomenclature is a universal language, a more efficient, more economical way of expressing oneself than the previous phrasal names; a nomenclature that supports labelling rather than diagnosing, contains words that refer to fixed ideas and is international and valid everywhere. The language of flowers is a cosmopolitan project, a universal language. During the eighteenth century, all of reality was subjected to classification and division. The science of the time was about order, irrespective of whether it concerned the constituents of materials, flowers, words or angels. Order constituted a significant part of Western culture, as the episteme of the era.29 Contrary to Michel Foucault’s power perspective, I underline the cognitive basis 27   Polhem’s manuscripts on universal language are collected in Anteckningar och utkast rörande ett af honom uppfunnet ‘Universalspråk’, KB, N 60. 28   Christopher Polhem, ‘Förslag till nyia namn uti botanicen’, Polhems skrifter IV, 346–349; Christopher Polhem, ‘Förslag till sådana tillnamn på örter och gräs som kuna i korthet utmerka deras dygd och egenskaper i gemen’, Polhems skrifter IV, 349–351; cf. Christopher Polhem, Naturliga kännetecken på nytt maner, KB, X 260:1, fol. 28–34; Carl von Linné, ‘Professor C. Linnæi. Samling af et hundrade wäxter upfundne på Gothland, Öland och Småland’, Kongl. swenska wetenskaps academiens handlingar, för månaderna julius, august. ock september 1741 (Stockholm, 1741), 179–210; cf. Gunnar Broberg, ‘The broken circle’, in Tore Frängsmyr, John L. Heilbron and Robin E. Rider (eds), The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century (Berkeley CA and Oxford, 1990), 56. 29   Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (Paris, 1966), 71.

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for the search for order. The classification of plants is part of the categorisation of the living environment in human thinking, as a way of handling the surroundings, of understanding them, a kind of curious cosmopolitanism. The Mechanical Alphabet The idea of the universal language is based on an ‘atomisation’ of reality, or seeing the concepts as distinct, divided up in a void. The ideas, the words, can be broken down, analysed into atoms and parts, as small particles of information. In the mechanistic view of the world, there is a far-reaching atomisation of reality, within nearly all fields, from the corpuscular theories within chemistry to universal mathematics. People thought that, with the help of the metaphor, the world is a construction kit. In the case of Polhem, machines consist of letters expresses the same cognitive thought pattern. Everything was thought to consist of building blocks; blocks that were put together into a world machine. Thoughts consisted of simple ideas, words of letters, music of notes, nature of numbers. Machines and mechanical movements also had their own, simple parts. Polhem’s teaching included ‘the mechanical alphabet’, which consisted of a large number of simple, educational wooden models showing the fundamental laws of mechanics. The models represented the simple and indivisible elements of mechanics, quite simply the building blocks of all engineering. These might be a steel spring, a cogwheel, the ratchet wheel mechanism, a windlass or other mechanical elements that each represented a ‘letter’ in the mechanical alphabet. They described different types of mechanical movement, such as the transfer of one type of movement into another, from rotating movement into straight line movement, and other rotating and forwards–backwards movements. Polhem’s mechanical alphabet became a pedagogic system, easy to learn, see and try out. With knowledge about these mechanical letters, a mechanic could build any machine he wished. Just like a poet can write the most beautiful poetry with the help of the ordinary alphabet, an engineer could learn the mechanical alphabet and form ‘sentences’ of the mechanical letters, that is to say construct complicated machines that could carry out useful work. The machines became like words and sentences. It was just as important, Polhem claimed, for a mechanic to know all the cogs, levers and catches in a machine as it was for a person with book learning to know the letters of the alphabet and the meaning of words (Figure 3.4).30 There were certain particularly important mechanical letters that corresponded to the vowels in ordinary spoken language. In the same way as we could not write words without vowels, it was also not possible to build a machine without any of the   Carl Cronstedt, Machiner, som till största dehlen äro uti wärket stelte [av Polhem] och af Ehrensverd och mig afritade åhr 1729: tillika med andra tilökningar som iag sielf giort tid effter annan, Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm (TM), 7405, p. 2. 30

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Figures 3.4 and 3.5  Polhem’s mechanical alphabet

Note: In 1729, when Polhem’s pupil, the architect Carl Johan Cronstedt, wrote them down in his notebook, they amounted to 103 different machine elements. Source: National Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm.

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five mechanical vowels, namely the lever, the wheel, the screw, the block and the wedge. The most important was the lever. Cog wheels, chains, bearings, joints and springs were probably to be regarded as consonants, not as necessary to include in each machine. In a letter, Polhem compares the mechanical alphabet with Chinese characters.31 The mechanical alphabet was based on the idea of the world as a construction kit, like a character system with infinite combination possibilities. The world consisted of small parts that could be put together into units, small atoms, corpuscles, that create bodies and objects, consonants and vowels that create words and sentences, digits and numbers, simple geometric figures that create the movements of the Universe, small mechanical letters that create mechanical words and books. Polhem’s mechanical alphabet became a celebrity, which was followed by other technical machine systematicians. The German technologist Johann Beckman saw this ABC, as did the future Venezuelan freedom hero Francisco de Miranda during his visit to Stockholm in 1787.32 In the mechanistic view of the world, mankind, thinking, language and machines linked into each other. The view was that thinking is a machine. Reason is a machine, ideas are its raw materials and conclusions are its products. Step by step, the thought machine puts together its thoughts into a finished product, and if everything has gone right, it spits out an irrefutable truth. The knowledge machine had been a dream since the rotating concentric circles of the medieval Spanish Franciscan Ramón Llull some 400 years earlier, where new combinations of concepts could be produced. During the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal and Leibniz constructed counting machines that in their way tried to imitate human counting. The widely held idea of the thought machine was parodied in Gulliver’s Travels.33 On the flying island of Laputa, a professor had constructed a machine that avoided the old, ordinary and laborious way of acquiring knowledge. With this fantastic machine, even the most uneducated person could now, without any effort, write thick tomes on anything from philosophy to mathematics or theology. The Universal Order Polhem’s thoughts about a universal language were guided by a number of fundamental metaphors. These metaphors were more or less unconscious, or such as he seldom or never reflected on, in particular that categories are containers and that the world is a construction kit. It is not necessarily the case that these   Polhem to Benzelius, Stjärnsund 5 November 1722. Christopher Polhems brev, ed. A. Liljencrantz (Uppsala, 1941–1946), 162. 32   Johann Beckmann, Schwedische Reise nach dem Tagebuch der Jahre 1765–1766 (Lengwil, 1995), 131; Francisco de Miranda, Archivo del general Miranda III (Caracas, 1929), 40f. 33   Swift, Travels, III, 71f. 31

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metaphors were used exactly as worded. In the late baroque era, they could have special formulations, such as with the machine metaphor. What is indicated instead are the cognitive thought patterns with which they, like us, think.34 These metaphors also capture two central problems in baroque thinking; on the one hand the classification and atomisation of objects and concepts, and on the other the issue of the secure method for conveying and absorbing knowledge or creating new knowledge. Fundamentally, it was about order – the belief that nature had an order; that this order could be discovered and described; that the objects had fixed essences; that words are or should be isomorphic with the objects. The system and order of creation had its guarantor in the infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence of the Christian God. The categorisation of reality is a fundamental cognitive ability in human thinking and perception. We have to create order, control the world and our surroundings with concepts, categories, names and classes. Classification also becomes an exercise of power, where the definitions exclude, disqualify phenomena or people from belonging to a certain category. By dividing and linking the categories with each other, we achieve greater order in the chaos of reality. With this categorising perception, the blurred transitions of reality are converted into distinct pigeonholes. Thinking adds borders that do not exist, fills in incomplete patterns. The categories, the borders and limitations are to a great extent learnt and culture dependent, that is to say they do not just correspond to the reality outside, but rather arise in the meeting between a person’s consciousness and his surroundings. Ordering is also about seeing likenesses between objects, which likenesses we consider to be the most important and which objects belong together. In other words, the category system determines what we see and what we do not see. That which falls outside the categories, we do not see. Categorising is about humankind’s constant search for order in chaos – an ordered world is easier to live in than a chaotic one. One way of making the world comprehensible is to try to make it logical, mathematical and geometric. This is needed for people’s interpretation of the world, and therefore categories more often talk about people themselves than the world itself. Polhem’s views on categories are of a classical kind, in which the categories are seen as defined by the objectively given characteristics shared by the members within a category. The categorisation is therefore dependent upon knowledge about the significant characteristics of a category. In the geometric world view, which Polhem’s comprises to a high degree, the essence of the objects can be determined in their geometric shape. What Polhem follows is the informal ‘theory’ of human thinking about essences, that is to say that people regard each object as a type of object, that it belongs to a certain category, that all objects have a collection of essence-determining characteristics that make the various objects into the type of objects they are, and that this essence is an inherent part of the object. That which 34   George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York, 1999), 36, 51.

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sets the tone for this way of thinking is Aristotle’s definition of ‘definition’ as a list of characteristics that are both necessary and sufficient for something to be of the type of object it is, and from which all the characteristics of the object originate.35 In order to construct an artificial language, the words must be isolated from the context; the words must be objectified, analysed and divided up into their simple constituents. The words are assumed to have a meaning in themselves, independent of the context – the language is decontextualised. The meaning of words does not arise in interaction between people, as the opposite relativist or functionalist view dictates, where language and words are regarded as coins that are exchanged, worn out and lose value, in accordance with the coin metaphor used by Quintilian and Horace.36 Instead, in the universal language constructors seek the fixed, eternal meanings. At the same time, universal languages are based on the idea that the words or the symbols can represent the world, and do not, as could be claimed instead, represent inner conceptions. There is a constant idea of a link between the language and the objects in the world; that the words refer to different objects. From a cognitive semantic perspective, the meaning of a word is not the material object in the outer world; instead the meaning is inside the head. Therefore, by studying categories in historical sources, we can make out the thinking and inner conceptions of the time. The concepts can be placed into different, clearly separated, pigeonholes, just like different types of coins, stones or shells. By understanding our experiences with the help of objects and substances, we can categorise and group them, quantify and reason about them. The universal language is the dream of a language with fixed meanings; the search for the unchangeability of concepts; a longing for lucidity and a closed, absolute system. It was thought that the categories existed outside human consciousness, which at the same time meant that a universal, transcendental logic was assumed, which reaches outside the human being. The universal language was conceived to reflect the true structure of reality. The tables of the universal language showed where the objects belonged, their special place in the universal order. The construction of an artificial universal language was a cosmopolitan project, a search for a language beyond nationality, ethnic and cultural background, which links rational beings in a common, true and everywhere valid classification of the world. The people on the Moon classify the objects in the same way as we do. An understanding of the idea of a cosmopolitan universal language is largely just about finding such underlying cognitive purposes, finding out the ‘containers’ or categories into which they classified the world. These categorisations of the human mind are dependent on experiences, conceptions, perceptions, movements in space, and the culture around them, but also on metaphors and mental images.   Aristotle, Analytikon ysteron, 2.3.90b30–31; George Lakoff and Rafael E. Núñez, Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being (New York, 2000), 107. 36   Francis Bacon, De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (London, 1623), Book 6, Chapter 1. 35

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The universal language constructors’ division of the world into categories says something about themselves, and their cosmopolitan endeavours. The categories, it was thought, were common for all people, irrespective of from which corner of the cosmos they originated.

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Plate 1 Leufsta bruk, 1769

Plate 2 ‘Hela Iordkretzens afritning’, unknown Swedish world map from the eighteenth century

Plate 3 Map of Uppsala, 1770

Plate 4 The frontispiece of Leones Méthode raissonée, depicting a female mandolin player

Plate 5 Eskilstuna ‘Fristad’, in 1771

Plate 6 Blueprint and elevation of the nuptials of Adolf Fredrik 1771, Per Floding (1731–1791), engraving, 39.3 cm × 24.6 cm, published in Solemnities 1772–1779

Plate 7 Emblems and provincial weapons in the Gustavian chapel during Adolf Fredrik’s nuptials 1771, engraving, 39.6 cm × 24.6 cm, published in Solemnities 1772–1779

Plate 8 The chamber of Georg Diedrich Heimberger, Carl Wilhelm Swedman (1762–1840), watercolour, 25 cm × 32 cm, around 1790

Plate 9 Le Jardinier gallant, Isidore-Stanislas Helman (1743–1806), after Pierre Antoine Baudouin (1723–1769), engraving, 38.4 cm × 27.6 cm

Plate 10 L’Amour frivole, Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet (1731–1797), after François Boucher (1703–1770), engraving, 32.4 cm × 25.2 cm

Plate 11 Portrait of Anders Chydenius, by the Swedish painter Per Fjällström, 1770 (1719–1790)

Plate 12 The Benefit of Neutrality, an engraving from 1745

Plate 13 A peasant woman from the hundred of Bjäre in southern Sweden wearing a pink scarf and blue jacket, skirt and apron. Pink was a colour not mentioned in Swedish runaway ads.

Plate 14 Plan of Gustavia, c. 1799/1800

Plate 15 View over Gustavia, c. 1793

Plate 16 Portrait of Bengt Lidner, coloured engraving by Anton Ulrik Berndes (1757–1844)

CULTIVATION Cultivation was a salient feature of early-modern society. The prevailing idea was that man lived in a mechanistic world, a cosmos, created by a benevolent God, and that this world was ordered according to his infinite wisdom. It was up to man himself to make a living from the endowments God had planted in a generous nature; minerals were taken from below ground and forests gave fuel and wood for building materials, but it was foremost through the cultivation of the land that this living was to be created; agriculture was the main occupation for man. It is within such a context that the first uses of the word ‘plantations’ shall be viewed, both people and plants could be ‘planted’ in virgin soil to replicate their place of origin. In the Swedish eighteenth century the word was used particularly in relation to specific places where ‘useful’ plants were cultivated for later refinement in manufacture. These static views gradually became integrated in expanding ideas of mercantilism, rooted as it was in a more nationalistic thinking; man had to make do with resources furnished by God, but installed within politically defined borders. There was a utilitarian search for resources hidden in domestic forests and a belief that it was possible to grow just about anything on domestic soils, and that this would expand the wealth of the nation. These ideas were pan-European, and all countries adopted similar strategies of closing borders, but on the other hand they were also cosmopolitan as agriculturalists gradually came to collect natural specimens from other countries, as well as other continents, to plant them ‘at home’. During the eighteenth century, and in the same curious vein, the same group of people also collected knowledge of new ways of organising agriculture as well as technological novelties. It reflected an agromanie, and agriculture became à la mode among these people; estate owners, aristocrats and even parish priests. Some of them had scientific ambitions, while others were politicians, economists, writers or held some kind of semi-official status. This coterie of elite groups, endowed with lots of transnational cultural assets, populated academies and societies. The aim of this chapter is to insert Sweden into this European pattern of a clash between mercantilism and cosmopolitanism; ideas, new crops, implements and methods were transplanted from other places, but this was done so as to strengthen borders with other countries. However, in doing so it also gradually changed not only Swedish agriculture, but also Sweden as a whole.

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Chapter 4

Swedish Agriculture in the Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century Mats Morell

Perspectives on Early-Modern Swedish Agriculture Along with many countries, Sweden embarked in the eighteenth century on an agricultural revolution involving improved technology, commercialisation and upheaval of rural social relations and settlement structures. Both per capita production and the rate of population growth rose. Since the 1970s, the dominant interpretation of this development has focused on the freeholding peasantry. Rent-extracting feudal landowners have been viewed as obstacles to progress. Production increase and population growth was stronger where freeholders rather than feudal tenants dominated. Peasant representatives in the Diet (parliament) managed to keep rents and taxes down on crown and freehold land and the real value of these burdens fell. Thus peasants retained more of the marketable surplus and gained the motives and resources to invest in further production increases.1 A virtue of this interpretation is that it offers an explanation as to how peasants were transformed from risk-averse traditionalists into agents of market-led progress. On the other hand, it contributed to characterizing the Swedish road to agricultural modernisation as a Sonderweg.2 While the importance of institutional changes like enclosure acts or free trade legislation was acknowledged, the actions of the cultural elites, official and scientific bodies and public or governmental organisations was unduly downplayed. This has served to veil the fact that the rural elite made a stronger imprint on agricultural development, particularly in the nineteenth century, in Sweden than in many other countries, reflecting that tenants to private landowners did not attain security of tenancy or unconditional right to buy their land.

1   The most recent account is in Carl-Johan Gadd, ‘The Agricultural Revolution in Sweden 1700–1870’, in Janken Myrdal and Mats Morell (eds), The Agrarian History of Sweden 4000 bc – ad 2000 (Lund, 2011), pp. 118–164. 2   See, for example, Christer Winberg, ‘Another Route to Modern Society: The Advancement of the Swedish Peasantry’, in Mats Lundahl, Mats and Thommy Svensson (eds), Agrarian Society in History. Essays in Honour of Magnus Mörner (London, 1990), pp. 46–67.

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In this chapter I will argue for the broad, European character of Swedish agricultural development in the eighteenth century. I will stress that openness to ‘new’ ideas, in itself an international phenomenon, was a characteristic of the time. Some of the novelties – new crops and consumer goods – were related to the globalization of trade which reached new heights in this era. I will emphasize that elite groups – gentleman farmers, state officials, scientists and writers – and provincial peasants alike had a role in this development. The Agromanie of the Cultural Elite By the mid eighteenth century, agriculture and countryside was a focus of interest for a growing cultural elite in Europe. An expression of this agromanie was that it became socially desirable for persons of rank to engage in farming.3 The agricultural enthusiasm of the elite corresponded to a prominent position of agriculture in economic doctrines. During the heyday of Swedish mercantilism, agriculture became central in the economic discourse. For the sacred ‘manufactures’, and for the wealth of the nation, it was considered important with a large population and a good supply of cheap labour. This required an ample supply of food, in particular grain, at low prices. Simultaneously, physiocratism emerged in France. On the one hand it was a narrowly defined economic doctrine developed within a French aristocratic coterie. On the other hand, the term has come to represent a generally enthusiastic attitude towards a generous nature. In that sense it was agromanie. Stringent physiocrats claimed that agriculture, preferably in its large-scale capitalist form, was the only productive industry. They claimed that an inherent natural order rather than any social contract regulated social relations, and they propagated laissez-faire in order to prevent interference with these natural laws.4 Accordingly, physiocrats pleaded for free trade, contractual forms of tenancy and taxes on land rents. A few Swedish reforms could be labelled physiocratic – grain trade was liberated in 1775–1780 – but physiocratism had few outspoken promoters in Sweden.5 3   Jerome Blum, The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe (Princeton, 1978), p. 248. Cf. Ulrich Lange, Experimentalfältet. Kungl. Lantbruksakademiens experiment- och försöksverksamhet på Norra Djurgården i Stockholm 1816–1907 (Stockholm, 2000), pp. 31–32. 4   Quesnay’s presentation of the doctrine of agriculture as the sole source of the net product was reproduced for the first time in Swedish translation in the Hushållningsjournal of the Patriot Society in 1777. See Staffan Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia. Med särskild hänsyn till den Gustavianska tidens agrara reformsträvanden (Stockholm, 1961), p. 128. 5   See Lars Herlitz, Fysiokratismen i svensk tappning 1767–1770 (Göteborg, 1974). Cf. Bo Gustafsson, ‘Hur fysiokratisk var den svenska fysiokratismen?’, Scandia, 42/1 (1976), pp. 60–91.

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The problem facing Swedish eighteenth-century economists and agricultural reformers was that domestic grain production was not affluent and population was scarce. The first Swedish professor of economics, Anders Berch in Uppsala, calculated that Swedish land resources could provide for 24 million farmers.6 In reality, domestic harvests did not suffice for the meagre population of less than a tenth of that figure. Instead, grain was imported from areas across the Baltic, parts of which had been Swedish provinces until 1718.7 Economic policy aimed at domestic development compensating for the lost trans-Baltic corn fields. With enlarged harvests, more people could be fed, grain imports would cease and the balance of trade would become favourable. Reformers promoted the exploitation of fens and forests as well as improvements in technology, farm organisation, grain distribution and storage. Inspiration was sought abroad. Britain became the great example. English farming was considered capital intensive, productive and superior to farming in other countries.8 Reformers, travellers and scientists spoke for what they perceived as the national economic interest. They measured domestic progress and ability to adapt new technologies, organisational models or crops by contrasting ‘us’ with the ‘other’, that is, the ‘foreigner’. Thus, the professor of economics in Lund, Claes Blechert Trozelius, pleaded for mechanical threshing, and mechanization in general, in order for Swedes to compete with foreigners. ‘If we could by using mechanical devices, more easily knit fishing nets, weave ribbons or spin threads etc. would that not be rather useful? In that way we would be able to run along with the foreigner and sell our goods for the same if not better price than him’.9 Should such statements be interpreted as representing the mercantilist antithesis of cosmopolitanism? Perhaps, but to make such references was part of the pan-European way of doctrinal thinking and in itself testimony to the incorporation of Sweden into this doctrinal universe. Furthermore, the novelties which were favoured by this nationalist attitude were acquired exactly through the cosmopolitan attitude of openness. English farming was, it was claimed, performed on a large scale by capitalist tenants or noble landowners. These gentleman farmers, honoured by the French   Sten Lindroth, Svensk lärdomshistoria. 3, Frihetstiden (Stockholm, 1978), p. 100.   Bengt Åke Berg, Volatility, Integration and Grain Banks: Studies in Harvests, Rye

6 7

Prices and Institutional Development of the Parish Magasins in Sweden in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Stockholm, 2007). 8   Lange, Experimentalfältet, pp. 37, 42–43. Cf. Nils Edling, För modernäringens modernisering. Två studier av Kungl. Skogs- och Lantbruksakademiens tillkomst och tidiga historia (Stockholm, 2003), p. 32; Gustaf Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare. Levnadsvillkor och arbetsliv på landsbygden från frihetstiden till mitten av 1800-talet (Stockholm, 1957), Vol. 1, pp. 616–628. 9   Claes Blechert Trozelius, En tröskmachin, Som i några år, med god nytta och Fördel warit brukad; Men nu, efter fleras åstundan, i koppar utstucken, Til Allmänt ompröfwande på egen bekostnad framgifwen (Stockholm, 1754).

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physiocrats, possessed the means, the inclination and the knowledge needed for carrying out productivity-enhancing innovations. This led the contemporary Swedish elite to the conclusion that the heart of the Swedish agricultural dilemma lay in the nation’s lack of a large class of gentleman farmers. A group of actively farming estate owners existed, but the overwhelming share of land was tilled by peasant farmers. The peasantry was sometimes idealised at the end of the century in poetry and art. (See Chapter 11 and the story about the prudent, but misled, peasant.) Nonetheless, peasants were perceived by social superiors as inert and unwilling or unable to abandon the farming practices of their forefathers.10 The Elite’s Reform Project The political and administrative elite’s solution to the agricultural dilemma was first to prompt large landowners, who, through their education, cultural positions and contacts with reciprocal groups in Britain and on the continent were in reach of the needed agronomic novelties, to lead the farming of their properties. Secondly it was considered necessary to create ‘a stronger organisation for the upper classes’ influence over peasant farming’.11 A number of professors in economics – Berch and Johan Låstbom in Uppsala, Trozelius in Lund – were installed. Berch’s chair was directed both towards ‘general economy’ – interpreted by Berch as the study of laws governing support for various industries, including agriculture, and ‘the specific economy’, that is, the practical development of certain industries. Embarking from natural history, Berch strove for an arithmetically calculated planned national economy where the state regulated the optimal supply of labour to all industrial branches. To a surprising degree these economists engaged in the practicalities of farming.12 Academies and economic societies also developed. The Royal Academy of Science, founded in 1739, aimed at enhancing the ‘progress of natural research useful in practical life and thereby reform the economy’. Agricultural issues were prominent in the academy and the transactions of the academy, Kongl. Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar, largely reflected efforts to collect, test and spread practical-scientific observations for the gain of industries, not least agriculture. Thus, the academy acted rather as an economic society.13 10   Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, pp. 12–14; Lange, Experimentalfältet, pp. 34, 42; Edling, ‘Ett statsmaktens ekonomiska sällskap‘, p. 20. Cf. Eli F. Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia från Gustav Vasa. 2, Det moderna Sveriges grundläggning (Stockholm, 1949), Vol. 1, pp. 147–283. 11   Högberg Patriotiska sällskapets historia, pp. 13–14. 12   Lindroth, Frihetstiden, pp. 98–102. Cf. Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, pp. 140–141. 13   Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, p. 41. See also Sten Lindroth, Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens historia 1739–1818 (Stockholm, 1967), Vol. 1 part 1, pp. 218 (quote), 223.

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By the 1770s the Patriotic Society took over much of the agricultural-economic concerns of the academy.14 Regional agricultural societies were founded in the 1790s, and by 1813 the Royal Academy of Agriculture started to act as their top organisation. It worked through the regional societies and through its experimental farm situated on the northern outskirts of Stockholm where methods, implements and new plants were tried out and demonstrated.15 The foundation of the Academy of Agriculture was inspired by the British Board of Agriculture.16 Corresponding organisations were created in Denmark in 1769 and in Norway 1809.17 These were elite organisations. In the national societies, scientists (some with industrial, mercantile or political interests) played the first fiddle; in the regional societies, estate owners and ironmasters were prominent. The knowledge these heralds of the nascent agricultural science attempted to transmit was part of an international trend, but so was the institutional apparatus and the searching in itself. Searching, testing and spreading were adapted to the national context. An interesting interplay evolved between the cosmopolitan scientific elite, the mercantilist policymakers (often the same people) and the peasantry. Scientists were genuinely interested in the experiences of the peasants. Anders Berch, for example, tried to validate accounts provided by peasant women concerning the amount of butter possible to extract per unit of milk.18 Berch’s and Låstbom’s collections of peasant farm implements from Swedish counties also reflect this interest. And the peasants responded. When, in 1775, the Academy of Science announced a prize sum for the best construction of a functional plough, the secretary, Pehr Wargentin, was loaded down with full-size peasant ploughs, models, construction drawings and descriptions.19 The Agricultural Writings of the Eighteenth Century The most important arena for the reform discourse was provided by the printing press. The publication of economic pamphlets, books and journals exploded in Sweden in the Age of Freedom (1719–1771). Much of this material concerned 14   Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, pp. 41–47; Lindroth, Vetenskapsakademiens 1, p. 242. See also Sten Lindroth, Vetenskapsakademiens historia, Vol. 2, p. 194. 15   Edling, ‘Ett statsmaktens ekonomiska sällskap’; Lange, Experimentalfältet. Cf. Mats Morell, Jordbruket i industrisamhället. Det svenska jordbrukets historia IV (Stockholm, 2001). 16   Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, Vol. 1, pp. 626–629. 17   Mats Morell and Mats Olsson, ‘Scandinavia, 1750–2000’ in Bas J.P. van Bavel and Richard Hoyle (eds), Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000: Social Relations, Property and Power (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 314–347. 18   Mats Morell, Studier i den svenska livsmedelskonsumtionens historia. Hospitalhjonens livsmedelskonsumtion 1621–1837 (Uppsala, 1989), p. 341. 19   Lindroth, Vetenskapsakademiens historia, Vol. 1, p. 249.

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agriculture. General publishing on economics dwindled after the coup d’état in 1772, but agricultural texts were still issued in growing numbers.20 While the older type of texts (in a German ‘Hausvater’ tradition) had focused on the running of individual elite farm households, the farming literature published after about 1740 commonly concerned implications on a national level of agricultural innovations.21 This experimental mentality and the encyclopaedic ambitions (although Johan Fisherström’s natural-history-based encyclopaedia of the Swedish economy did not reach beyond the letter ‘C’22) were Swedish reflections of general trends. Dependency on foreign originals is traced in many cases, but few texts were direct translations.23 Roughly sixty pamphlets, articles and books systematically referred to farming conditions in other countries. A dozen of the articles referred mainly to antique Greek, Roman or Israelite conditions, almost a genre in itself.24 Behind the agricultural debate lay the ambition to come to terms with the national grain deficit and the allegedly overly sparse population. To this end, some authors addressed organisational reforms, in particular enclosures and land consolidations. Others focused on technical matters, propaganda for the cultivation of potatoes and other new crops, land clearance or the complex problems concerning lack of manure, weak foddering of cattle and deficient meadows.25 In the following, I will exemplify a couple of these themes and show how the practical solutions proposed on the one hand related to universal agricultural science or general cultural influences, while the authors mostly focused on national adaptations. Thanks to the strong focus on implementation, some of this literature probably had some importance for agricultural development. Despite widespread literacy, few peasant farmers directly encountered these publications, but intermediate groups, not least parish priests, often active agriculturalists themselves, did, and they had good opportunities to spread the novelties they found useful.

  Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, p. 118–119.   Högberg, Patriotiska sällskapets historia, pp. 122–123. Cf. Enoch Ingers, Bonden

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i Svensk historia, Vol. 2 (Stockholm, 1948), pp. 104–105. 22   Edling, För modernäringens, p. 21. 23   Translations became more important in the nineteenth century when the reform ambitions were fulfilled by the foundation of the agricultural academy, the regional societies, agricultural schools and higher institutes. Cf. Mats Morell, ‘Den agrara ingenjörskonsten’, in Anders Björnsson, and Lars Magnusson (eds), Jordpäron, Ekonomihistorisk läsebok (Stockholm, 2011), pp. 445–471. 24   Per Magnus Hebbe, Den svenska lantbrukslitteraturen: bibliografisk förteckning. 1, Från äldsta tid t.o.m. år 1800 (Uppsala, 1939), pp. 73–79. 25   Hebbe, Den svenska lantbrukslitteraturen. 1.

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Enclosures and Commons Storskiftet, the early enclosures, was the most important Swedish agrarian reform of the eighteenth century. It reflected lines of thought appearing in several European regions, but the implication was specific. Most peasant farms in Sweden were part of village communities with strong influence over land use. The arable land consisted of open fields where all villagers had several unfenced strips, proportional to the size of their holdings. After harvest, the villagers’ cattle grazed the stubble. They also grazed fields which lay fallow. Communal fences kept the animals away from the growing crops and from the meadows before the hay harvest. Villagers had to harvest at about the same time and they cooperated in fencing. The outlying land, often forest, was communally owned by the villagers and here their creatures were free to graze. The arable strips were individually owned, but communally used when the creatures were grazing there. This was done following codifications in village bye-laws, and was intended to protect the land from over-exploitation.26 The same organisational form had dominated in large parts of Europe since the Middle Ages. The most convincing explanations for the rationality and longevity of the system have concerned the spreading of and insurance against risks. In time, other possibilities to deal with risks appeared and problems with this organisation grew.27 Cattle belonging to all farmers intermingled; the open fields and collectively determined timings of work made it hard to grow different crops in neighbouring strips, and it has been argued that change of rotation system was hindered as village consent was needed. Contemporaries complained about time wasted by farmers in reaching their various plots. For these and other reasons many land owners tried to strengthen control of their land by enclosing it. In Britain this had been going on since the Middle Ages. The English enclosure movement gained momentum when, in the eighteenth century, landowners could get their lands consolidated and enclosed and the commons divided up and privatized, according to parliamentary decisions in each case.28

  A brief updated description of this system in Sweden is available in Gadd, ‘The Agricultural Revolution’. 27   Donald McCloskey, ‘The Persistence of English Common Fields’, in William N. Parker and Eric L. Jones (eds), European Peasants and their Markets (Princeton, 1975), pp. 73–119. 28   Mark Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England. The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500–1850 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 147–167. English enclosures have been extensively debated. See, for example, Donald McCloskey, ‘Economics of Enclosure: A Market Analysis’, in William N. Parker and Eric L. Jones (eds), European Peasants and their Markets (Princeton, 1975), pp. 123–160. Cf. Robert C. Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands, 1450–1850 (Oxford, 1992). 26

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In many other European regions the open field system and the commons continued far into the nineteenth century, although commons were often threatened to be privatized by the lord of the manor or controlled by the crown. By the late eighteenth century, however, a discourse had developed according to which this organisational form was inefficient as it hampered private initiatives.29 In England, enclosures often implied that landowners evicted tenants with unsecure titles, consolidated their land and leased it out in larger units to capitalist farmers.30 With only one owner of land, used by several tenants, the process to consolidate and enclose land was simply a matter of claiming ‘full’ ownership rights to it. To consolidate land in one plot per farmer, in cases where several owners were involved, as in most villages in Sweden where the property rights of freeholders and crown tenants had been secured, meant that land had to be exchanged between owners. Accordingly, the first enclosure or consolidation acts from the mid eighteenth century regulated how land should be exchanged. The storskifte acts followed from proposals by Jacob Faggot (1699–1777), an influential mercantilist politician, member of the Academy of Science and chief director of the national land surveying authority from 1747.31 The description, in his main work Svenska lantbrukets hinder och hjälp (‘The hindrance and help for Swedish agriculture’) published in 1746, of the drawbacks of open fields remained the foundation of the judgement of pre-enclosure agriculture in Sweden for generations of historians. Arguably, Faggot did not have to look beyond the North Sea for inspiration for the storskifte, as many estates in Sweden had their lands broken out from the villages, consolidated and enclosed.32 Still, it is not likely that he, after assiduous observation of the lamentable condition of farming, inductively concluded that   See the 1750–2000 regional chapters in Bas van Bavel and Richard Hoyle (eds), Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000: Social Relations, Property and Power (Turnhout, 2010). For France specifically, see Jean-Pierre Jessene and Nadine Vivier, ‘Northern France, 1750–2000’, in Bas van Bavel and Richard Hoyle (eds), Rural Economy and Society in North-Western Europe, 500–2000: Social Relations, Property and Power (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 138–166; Nadine Vivier, ‘Collective Property and Environmental Concern: The French Case 1750–2000’, in Bas van Bavel and Erik Thoen (eds), Rural Societies and Environments at Risk: Ecology, Property Rights and Social Organisation in Fragile Areas (Middle Ages – Twentieth Century) (Turnhout 2013), pp. 233–252; Sylvain Olivier, ‘Peasant Property, Common Land and Environment in the Garrigues of the Languedoc from Seventeenth to Twenty-First Century’, in Bas van Bavel and Erik Thoen (eds), Rural Societies and Environments at Risk: Ecology, Property Rights and Social Organisation in Fragile Areas (Middle Ages – Twentieth Century (Turnhout 2013), pp. 85–110. 30   There was, however, much variation. Cf. Overton, Agricultural Revolution, pp. 147–59. 31   Biographical data from Bengt Hildebrand, ‘Jacob Faggot’, in Svenskt Biografiskt lexikon 14 (1998), pp. 767–777. 32   Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia, Vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 251. 29

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what was missing was privatized property and individualized land use. English enclosures were known in Sweden at least since the writings of Jacob Serenius in 1727,33 and Faggot’s discussion of forest management makes clear that the origin of his thoughts about enclosures was found abroad. While many contemporary writers argued that allowing cottages and colonisers on the commons would produce poverty and ruin the forests,34 Faggot claimed that privatization and colonizing of commons would create wealth and demand, and stimulate other industries. Privatization of forest commons was the best means for stimulating population growth, he claimed. It would enhance individual entrepreneurship: ‘you employ more economy, and thrift when you use what you own yourself compared to when you use the property belonging to someone else’. He explicitly referred to ‘the English statute, which several years ago was made with the commons, which as long as they were used collectively were infertile and little useful land, but have later on been transformed into fertile and carrying land, since these areas have been attributed to, and handed over to specific owners’.35 In a memorandum from 1755, he suggested that forest commons – not private ownership – led to overexploitation.36 Faggot’s arguments concerning forest commons echo in later juridical argumentation in post-Revolution and Second Republic France, which also reflects British patterns.37 Faggot pleaded for full consolidation, with one plot for each user, but in reality the storskifte only modified the open field system. It did not crush the village communities and it rarely seriously affected settlement agglomerations. This is, however, what the radical enclosures did. The first radical enclosure or enskifte in Sweden was effected in 1783–87 by Rutger Maclean on his estate Svaneholm, which at the time incorporated almost the entire parish of Skurup in Scania. His tenants enjoyed no security in tenancy so he could dispose of his land freely. The old village communities were broken up, the layout of the land was altered, the open field system was scrapped and the old tenant farms were replaced by new ones with consolidated fields. A few other large land owners in Scania followed in Maclean’s footsteps around the turn of the century.38 To what extent Maclean was inspired by British experiences is unclear. Already in 1773 the traveller Barcheus had heard Scanian land owners demand the

  Jacob Serenius, Engelska åker-mannen och fåraherden, eller: åkerbruks-konsten och fårskötseln … (Stockholm, 1727). 34   The Gotland county mayor, however, had already, in 1738, praised the private forest ownership of the island, where the agricultural homesteads had already consolidated and separated fields. See Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia, Vol. 1, p. 250. 35   Jacob Faggot, 4 May 1757, quoted in Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, Vol. 1, p. 262. 36   Börje Hanssen and Jacob Faggot, ‘Jacob Faggots Memorial av år 1755’, Ekonomisk Tidskrift 48/4 (1946), pp. 275–289. 37   Jessene and Vivier, ‘Northern France’. 38   Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia. 2, Vol. 1, pp. 257–258. 33

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breaking up of villages.39 Across the straits in Denmark, governmental committees during the 1750s and 1760s developed the goal of completely abandoning the open field system. The Danish enclosure movement gained momentum in the 1780s following a law that gave each land owner the right to rearrange his estates, while, contrary to the British pattern, the possessional rights of the tenants were strengthened. Thirty years later, practically all peasant villages in Denmark had been transformed into individual consolidated farms.40 The Swedish legislation of enskifte, from 1803, was modelled after the Danish example. The enskifte Act was problematic in topographically varied areas, since it strictly demanded that owners got all their land in one piece, but in 1827 a modified laga skifte Act replaced all previous enclosure legislation.41 The enclosure Acts required that at least one landowner of the village may demand the exchange and consolidation of land for anything to happen. The unique situation in Sweden was that most landowners who could demand enclosure were freeholding peasants (or crown tenants). Noble land owners, burghers and priests accounted for a disproportionate number of applications, but peasants lay behind the majority and after some hesitation peasant farmers were generally positive to enclosures.42 Technological Diffusion: Threshing Wagons and Rollers One case for discussion of the relationship between the international idea climate, the diffusion pattern and local inventors, concerned efforts to mechanize threshing, prior to the modern threshing machines, founded on a construction by the Scotsman Andrew Meikle in the 1780s. The jointed two-piece hand flail remained the standard north-west European threshing instrument right up to the nineteenth century.43 In Meikle’s machine, the grain passes between a rotating cylinder with bars and a concave element matching the cylinder. The beating by the bars of the cylinder releases the seeds from the chaff and straw. Meikle’s thresher saved

  Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, Vol. 1, pp. 532–533.   Lotte Dombernovsky, ‘Ca 1720–1810’, in Claus Bjørn (ed.), Det danske landbrugs

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historie. 2 (Odense, 1988), pp. 311–331. Cf. Carsten Porskrog Rasmussen, ‘An English or Continental way? The Great Agrarian Reforms in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein in the late Eighteenth Century’, in Rosa Congost and Rui Santos (eds), Contexts of Property in Europe. The Social Embeddedness of Property Rights in Land in Historical Perspective (Turnhout, 2010), pp. 125–144. See also Morell and Olsson, ‘Scandinavia’. 41   Morell and Olsson, ‘Scandinavia’. 42   Gadd, ‘The Agricultural Revolution’, pp. 153–154. 43   Dag Trotzig, Slagan och andra tröskredskap. En etnologisk undersökning med utgångspunkt i svenskt material (Stockholm, 1943).

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labour and helped displace thousands of threshing workers in Britain. It has been linked to the Swing riots in the 1830s.44 Threshers using Meikle’s principles appeared on some estates in Sweden in the early nineteenth century. Prior to that, simpler solutions emerged in the north. In 1730, the gymnasium lecturer Magnus Stridsberg from Härnösand, Ångermanland county, requested a royal patent for a threshing wagon which he had constructed. It consisted of a number of connected iron-shod wheels attached to a frame on which the driver could sit. It was to be drawn by a horse, back and forth in a long barn over a wooden floor where the corn was spread out. He received his patent, advertised his machine in a pamphlet three years later and described the wagon in an article in the transactions of The Academy of Science in 1754. Four years later the traveller Abraham Abrahamsson Hülphers noted many threshing wagons belonging to priests and well-to-do peasants along the northern Baltic coast.45 Further developments of the threshing wagons were described again by Stridsberg and his colleague, Nils Gissler (cf. Figure 4.1). Now the wheels were made of solid cast iron. In 1769, Gissler mentioned conic rifled threshing rollers made of wood which were pulled around a vertical central axis. He claimed a peasant from Hälsingland, another northern province, had invented the roller. Yet another lecturer from Härnösand, Pehr Hellzén, talked of rollers arranged in wooden frames with either cogs or rifles.46 Cast iron wheels were probably produced by ironworks located in the area. This presupposed a certain demand, and by the 1770s Stridsberg’s iron wagon was widely used among larger farms in the north, which could afford long, costly barns, while rollers combined with smaller round or octagonal barns were common among northern peasants. Very few threshing wagons or rollers appeared in south or mid Sweden.47

  Eric Hobsbawm and George Rudé, Captain Swing (London, 1969).   Trotzig, Slagan, pp. 153–156; Magnus Stridsberg, ‘Ny inrättning af väder-rior

44 45

ock logar til sädens torkning och tröskning’, Kongliga Svenska Vetenskapsacademiens handlingar 15/4 (1754), pp. 265–271. See also Abraham Abrahamsson Hülphers, Dagbok öfwer en resa genom Norrland 1758, ed. NilsArvid Bringeus and Harald Hvarfner (Stockholm, 1978), pp. 66, 80, 134, 137, 141, 154. 46   Trotzig, Slagan, pp. 156–157; Hebbe, Den svenska lantbrukslitteraturen, p. 284; Hülphers, Dagbok, p. 154 also mentions cast iron wheels. 47   Gösta Berg, ‘Den svenska tröskvagnen’, Västerbotten, 11 (1931), pp. 169–191; Trotzig, Slagan, pp. 156–160; Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, vol 1, pp. 478–479; Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, Vol. 2, p. 326; Sigurd Erixson, Atlas över svensk folkkultur. 1, Materiell och social kultur (Uppsala, 1957), p. 47; Fredrik A.U. Cronstedt, Sockenbeskrivningar från Hälsningland 1790–1791, ed. Nils-Arvid Bringeus (Uppsala, 1961), p. 392; Nils-Arvid Bringeus, ‘Efterskrift’, in Abraham Abrahamsson Hülphers, Dagbok öfwer en resa genom Norrland 1758, ed. Nils-Arvid Bringeus (Stockholm, 1978), p. 226.

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Figure 4.1

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Model drawings of two Northern Swedish Threshing wagons, a double conic threshing roller and two threshing barns

Source: Nils Gissler, ‘Beskrifning på Tork-Hässjor och Trösk-vagnar som brukas i WästerNorrland’, Kongl. Vetenskapsacademiens handlingar 30/3 (1769), p. 256:3 (Uppsala University Library).

Similar threshing methods had been used in western Asia, northern Africa and parts of southern Europe from antiquity. It was common to let cattle or horses tread out seeds by walking on the corn sheaves in a round, hardened threshing place. The Roman writer Columella advised farmers with too few draught animals to use a threshing sledge, a wooden board folded up in the front and with hundreds of small chips of flint stone or iron fitted underneath. Versions of the sledge spread to Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries bc, and reached Rome from the agriculturally more advanced Carthage. Carthagians are also believed to have introduced threshing carts, known as plostellum poenicum, in Hispania. The

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plostellum was a wooden frame with two to five axles with cogged iron wheels or shelves and a seat for the driver. It was pulled by draught animals over the grain.48 Later, threshing with rolling equipment seems undocumented in continental Europe before rollers appeared in the Po valley in the sixteenth century. Around 1800 it had spread to southern France. Later it appeared in other parts of Europe.49 The earliest Dutch documentation of ‘Groningen’ or ‘Friesian’ threshing ‘blocks’ is, however, dated to the 1730s, about the time threshing wagons appeared in northern Sweden.50 The threshing methods of western Asian and Mediterranean regions were known to the educated elite in eighteenth-century Europe. In 1751, a Swedish diplomat who had been stationed in Turkey, Edward Carleson, described, in the Transactions of the Academy of Science, ‘[t]he oriental method of threshing, introduced for use here in Sweden’. It was the threshing sledge. Carleson recruited a Bulgarian peasant and performed experiments on estates in the vicinity of Stockholm, in front of observers from the Academy of Science. However Carleson’s efforts seem to have had no impact on the spreading of similar methods in Sweden.51 Three years later, the professor of economics in Lund, Trozelius, wrote a pamphlet presenting ‘[a] threshing machine, which in a few years, has with good utility and advantage been used’. Trozelius described a construction of four conic rifled rollers bound to a vertical axis powered by a water wheel. It was set up in 1741 on the Rottneros estate in the mid-Swedish county of Värmland.52 The ethnologist Dag Trotzig suggested that the machine described by Trozelius was modelled after the Italian architect Giovanni Branca’s work le Machine, published in 1629. Branca, in turn, it is claimed, brought back the idea from the Po plain – where threshing rollers were used – or from an illustration of threshing rollers in La vinti giornai dell’ agriocoltura published by the Venetian Agostino 48   Lucius Columella, ‘Andra boken om lantbruk: Åkerbruksboken’, in Lucius, Junius Moderatus Columella: Tolv böcker om lantbruk, samt Liv lantbruk och livsmedel i Columellas värld. Tolv artiklar av nutida svenska forskare (Stockholm, 2009), pp. 79– 80; Janken Myrdal, ‘Åkerbrukets teknik hos Columella’, in Lucius, Junius Moderatus Columella: Tolv böcker om lantbruk samt Liv, lantbruk och livsmedel i Columellas värld. Tolv artiklar av nutida svenska forskare (Stockholm, 2009), pp. 533–534. Cf. Trotzig, Slagan, p. 145; Kenneth Douglas White, Agricultural Implements of the Roman World (London, 1967), pp. 152–156. 49   Trotzig, Slagan, pp. 148–152. Threshing rollers were, however, used in China before the thirteenth century. Trotzig (p. 164) speculates that they reached Italy along with rice cultivation. 50   Bridget Jolly, ‘Sketch notes of South Australia’s Onkaparainga threshing roller and some antecendents’ (2011), pt 2, p. 7. Jolly also cites documentation of rollers in Virginia in 1765 and later from Australia. 51   Edward Carleson, ‘Det Orientaliska Trösknings-Sättet, infört til nyttjande här i Sverige och beskrifvit’, Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsacademiens Handlingar 12/1 (1751), pp. 49–55; Berg ‘Den svenska tröskvagnen’, pp. 169–171; Trotzig, Slagan, p. 143; 52   Trozelius, En tröskmachin.

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Gallo, in 1572. It was further proposed that rollers in northern Sweden were influenced by Trozelius’ publication and thus indirectly by Italian forerunners.53 However, no evidence verifies that the constructor at Rottneros had read Branca or Gallo (who was known by Låstbom and Berch). And although a hybrid of Trozelius’ and Stridsberg’s models was made in 1757 by Nicolaus Vestrin, a vicar in the county of Uppland,54 no evidence verifies that Trozelius’ presentation led to copies within Sweden. The linking of northern rollers, via Trozelius, to Italian models was finally refuted by Trotzig himself, since he was unable to show any continuous spreading from one community to another, which according to standard ethnological theory would be normal in diffusion processes.55 The fact that reasonably similar rollers appeared simultaneously in the Netherlands and northern Sweden still suggests inter-regional influences, but what about the Stridsberg wagon, which resembled nothing else (or possibly the plostellum)? It has been suggested that it was inspired by Bible verses, foremost Isaiah 28:27–28. Indeed, Stridsberg refered to Isaiah, and the vicar/inventor Vestrin claimed that those verses had convinced him that ‘threshing with wagon wheels and horses could incontrovertibly be done’, but he also referred to earlier Swedish inventors.56 References to threshing are common in the Bible. They describe threshing sledges and carts, as mentioned above. In translating the texts to vernacular languages, some variation evolved. The King James English Bible has Isaiah 28:27 as: ‘For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.’ The following verse reads: ‘Bread [corn] is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break [it with] the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it [with] his horsemen.’ In some later English translations ‘instrument’ is replaced by ‘sledge’. The Swedish 1703 translation, which Stridsberg probably consulted, has ‘flail’ (Sw. slaga) instead of ‘instrument’ and ‘wagon wheel’ (Sw. vagnshjul) instead of ‘cart wheel’. Thus these verses talk indirectly of threshing carts or threshing wagons. But they are vague as to the construction of these implements. The 1703 Swedish version of another verse, Isaiah 41:15, is more specific. It talks of a ‘new sharp threshing wagon, which has spikes’.   Trotzig, Slagan, pp. 160–162, 155.   Trotzig, Slagan, p. 155. 55   Trotzig, Slagan, p. 163. According to Berg, ‘Den svenska tröskvagnen’, the 53 54

threshing roller is a specific north-Swedish invention. 56   Berg, ‘Den svenska tröskvagnen’, pp. 188–189. Trozelius also indirectly used biblical references as he mentioned threshing by use of animals had been employed in the Kingdom of Judah (Trozelius, En tröskmachin). Cf. CarlJohan Gadd ‘Jordbruksteknisk förändring i Sverige under 1700- och 1800-talen. Regionala aspekter’, in Lennart A. Palm, CarlJohan Gadd and Lars Nyström (eds), Ett föränderligt agrarsamhälle. Västsverige i jämförande belysning (Göteborg, 1998), p. 149.

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What matters is not which translation best described the instruments that really were in use in the time of the prophet, but what the eighteenth-century inventors read and what they made of their reading. Clearly Stridsberg’s wagon had no ‘spikes’ as mentioned in the Swedish Bible quotes, while Vestrin’s – as well as some of the rollers with cogs – may have been said to have had spikes. Therefore, the meagre inspiration the first inventor Stridsberg might have had from the Bible was very generally for a threshing wagon. Other than that he had to use his own creativity. Vestrin, who explicitly referred to the Bible, was clearly influenced by earlier Swedish constructions and needed Bible quotes rather for confirmation than inspiration. To conclude, while Stridsberg’s threshing wagon may have been vaguely inspired by Bible quotes it was an original construction, while the cogged rollers were possibly local adaptations of common ideas. The quick spreading of the cogged rollers in the north was partly explained by the actions of the elite: An energetic county mayor, Per Örnsköld, had 23,000 copies of a pamphlet on the virtues of the rollers printed, to be distributed among the peasants in his county.57 Given the efficiency of threshing rollers,58 why did they not spread beyond northern Sweden? Why did the rule of the flail remain in most of western Europe far into the nineteenth century, despite the borderless transfer of ideas amongst the cultural elites, despite the documented existence of threshing rollers in Italy, despite examples of threshing sledges and threshing carts on Europe’s southeastern borders and the known examples of such threshers in antique literature, and despite the fact that several presentations of Swedish threshing rollers and wagons were translated into continental languages?59 The absence of strongly demarcated elites in northern Sweden has been referred to as a factor promoting the spread of rollers there. There was no nobility, no tenants, just freeholders and crofters. Society was comparatively non-hierarchic. The upper class consisted of (farming) parish priests (educated readers), and the social gulf between them and the peasants was no obstacle to cultural transmission. Furthermore, the early expansion of the sawmill industry which pushed up farmhand wages and enriched forest-owning peasants gave them the incentives and resources to invest to save labour. In southern Sweden, rye was a common crop and this was ill-suited to the threshing rollers, since the   Trotzig, Slagan, p. 156.   Gadd, ‘Jordbruksteknisk förändring’, p. 148. 59   Trozelius was referred to in at least two German publications in 1756 and 1773 and 57

58

translated into German in 1769. A few German threshing machines modelled after Trozelius’ descriptions have been observed. Other works translated include Carleson (Swedish 1751, German 1755, French 1768, 1772); Schissler (Stridsberg’s and Vestrin’s wagons, Swedish 1761, German 1764, French résumé 1772); Hellzén (northern roller, Swedish 1777, German 1782). All these references are from Hebbe, Den svenska lantbrukslitteraturen. 1, pp. 283– 284. Swedish threshers were also discussed in German encyclopaedic works by the end of the century (Trotzig, Slagan, p. 154).

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straw, used for roof covering, was crushed by the rollers. In the north, peasants grew exclusively barley, the straw of which was not used for roofs. Finally it has been argued that this method of threshing required barns, when practiced north of the Alps, as threshing was normally done in a wet season. The preconditions for this was better in northern Sweden than elsewhere, as the supply of wood for the barns required was ample in the north, but not in the southern plains.60 This seems convincing, but rollers were used in wet places with profoundly smaller supplies of cheap wood, notably the Netherlands, and we have to be satisfied with the composite hypothesis that a number of factors made threshing wagons and rollers particularly useful in the North. The connection of endogenously developed northern threshing rollers to methods documented in areas strongly focused on by contemporary interest (the antique east Mediterranean, including biblical Israel) raises the question of whether this example shows the possibilities or the limits of and resistance against cosmopolitan ideas and the elite-centred transmission project. Clearly, local communities were able to create functional implements or to make functional adaptations of ideas they encountered. Given a suitable social fabric, there was not much resistance to functioning novelties, wherever they originated from. New Crops – Tobacco Another feature of the eighteenth-century agricultural texts is the introduction of new crops. Leaving grasses, fodder plants and garden herbs aside, two new crops were established in Sweden in the eighteenth century. Both of them, potatoes and tobacco, stemmed from the European encounter with America.61 The potato was incessantly promoted; it was perfect for the ruling mercantilist doctrine. It provided cheap food for the poor (thus making labour cheaper). It could potentially help to reduce grain imports. Still, the potato only acquired its prestigious place on Swedish dinner tables and in Swedish crop rotations in the early nineteenth century.62 Tobacco was accepted as a consumer item much earlier, and was a successful crop by the mid eighteenth century. This can be explained by the defining character of tobacco. It was one in a sequence of stimulants which conquered Europe and the world from the Middle 60   Gadd introduces the hypothesis of the importance of cheap wood. See Gadd, ‘Jordbruksteknisk förändring’, pp. 149–151. Cf. Trotzig, Slagan, p. 163–164; Berg, Den svenska tröskvagnen; Utterström, Jordbrukets arbetare, Vol. 1, p. 479; Morell, Jordbruket, p. 300. 61   Mulberry trees were also cultivated, with little success. Maize has been sparingly cultivated in Sweden, although Per Kalm presented its cultivation in America to the Academy in 1752. See Hebbe, Den svenska lantbrukslitteraturen. 1, p. 127. 62   Gustaf Utterström, Potatisodlingen i Sverige under frihetstiden: med en översikt över odlingens utveckling intill omkring 1820 (Stockholm, 1984). Cf. Morell, Studier.

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Ages onwards. While wine, beer and distilled alcohol rested on traditional agriculture developed within the European subcontinent, most other stimulants shared an exotic heritage and were aspects of early globalization. With sea routes to East Asia established, tea became for a long time the most important Chinese commodity imported to Europe. Coffee, like sugar, imported from the Arabs and via the Turks, remained a small item as long as production was restricted to the vicinity of Mocka in Arabia, and although by the early eighteenth century Europeans had established slave production in Java and the West Indies, coffee consumption remained socially restricted throughout the eighteenth century.63 Of the stimulants brought from the New World, chocolate, the ‘status drink for l’ancien regime’, remained marginal in Europe.64 Tobacco, on the other hand, enjoyed quick and remarkably trans-social diffusion. It had, as Fernand Braudel remarks, unlike other stimulants no support from established markets in producing regions (pepper – India; tea – China; coffee – Islam; chocolate – New Spain), but it was adaptable to various climates and could easily be cultivated within Europe.65 Tobacco was not spread down the social ladder, by the lower classes imitating the upper. Soldiers who returned home after campaigns helped to spread the smoking habit and the Thirty Years War was a major factor in its spreading.66 In Sweden, the first documentation of tobacco dates from the late 1620s. A chalk pipe was found among the luggage of a seaman of the Wasa ship which sank in August 1628.67 In 1629 a student quarrel over tobacco at Uppsala University was registered in the minutes of the Consistorium,68 and the same year an ordinance for the city scales in Stockholm specified the fee for weighing tobacco at 8 öre per 20 pounds.69 Ten years later, imports had reached magnitudes motivating the inclusion of tobacco in tariff lists.70 63   Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life (Los Angeles. 1992), pp. 260–265; Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Paradiset, smaken och förnuftet. Njutningsmedlens historia (Stockholm, 1982); Carole Shammas, The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America (Oxford, 1990); Ragnhild Hutchinson, In the Doorway to Development: An Enquiry into Market-Oriented Structural Changes in Norway ca. 1750–1830 (Firenze, 2010). For Sweden, see Christer Ahlberger, Konsumtionsrevolutionen. 1, Om det moderna konsumtionssamhällets framväxt 1750–1900 (Göteborg, 1996). 64   Schivelbush, Paradiset, p. 99. 65   Braudel, Structures, p. 262. Cf. Hutchinson, Doorway, p. 230. 66   Schivelbush, Paradiset, p. 125; Moritz Marcus, Den Svenska tobaksindustrien år 1908 (Stockholm, 1911), p. 47; Arne Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia i Sverige’, in Minnesskrift utgiven med anledning av Svenska tobaksmonopolets tjugofemåriga verksamhet den 1 juni 1940 (Stockholm, 1940), p. 16. 67   Carl-Gustaf Cederlund, ‘“Att supa tobak.” En översikt över tobaksbrukets äldsta historia i Sverige’, Fataburen (1966), p. 48. 68   Magnus Bernhard Swederus, Blad ur tobakens historia (Stockholm, 1888). 69   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, p. 24. 70   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, p. 24.

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In the mercantilist discourse, tobacco was the unnecessary luxury par excellence, but soon governments had to identify it as a created necessity, and went on to tax it to gain from the consumption. Therefore, the early use, trade and production of tobacco are, for many countries, identified by governmental efforts at restriction and taxation.71 The Swedish strategy varied back and forth in the seventeenth century. Either exclusive rights for duty-free imports were sold to chosen mercantile companies, or the importation was allowed for all, but heavily burdened by tariffs. Either way, smuggling remained a perennial problem.72 Import data suggests that domestic consumption of (lawfully) imported tobacco fluctuated around 100 grams per inhabitant in the 1670s.73 The last lease of monopoly import rights expired in 1685. Tariffs were restored and the building up of a domestic tobacco industry was promoted. Imports of processed tobacco were restricted in 1687, while it was declared that anyone was free to import and process tobacco leaves. Tobacco manufacturing was quickly established. Between 1685 and 1700, 14 factories were founded in Stockholm and 26 in other towns.74 All the raw tobacco for the factories was imported, and when the authorities engaged in plans for economic revival after the disruption of the Great Nordic War, it was claimed that raw tobacco imports contributed strongly to the unfavourable balance of trade. Despite occasional efforts to cultivate tobacco commercially in the seventeenth century, it seems to have remained a curiosity in the botanic garden of Olof Rudbeck in Uppsala and among noble estate owners.75 From the 1720s, cultivation expanded quickly, at least partly due to governmental efforts. In 1720 the collegium of commerce informed the government of successful tobacco cultivation trials in Scania and extolled the virtue of replacing the costly imports by domestically grown tobacco. Three years later, the commerce deputation of the Diet responded and talked of the more than   Braudel, Structures, pp. 262–264.   Betänkande och förslag i fråga om ökad beskatning å tobak och tobaksfabrikat

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26/1 1904 (Stockholm, 1904), pp. 38, 84–94; Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, pp. 24–62. 73   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, p. 48. Gross import figures compared to population data calculated by MM. 74   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’ pp. 62–63. 75   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, pp. 29–30; Swederus, Blad. The magistrate in the Scanian town of Landskrona in 1746 claimed in a letter to the county mayor that tobacco had been cultivated there 100 years earlier, but that the growing had been aborted. See Arne Svensson, ‘Ur den svenska tobaksodlingens historia’, in Ulf af Trolle (ed.), Om tobak i Sverige. Jubileumsskrift 1915–1965 (Stockholm, 1965), p. 292. In 1690, tobacco cultivation was described in the – fourteenth volume of Åke Rålamb’s handbook for noble estate owners. The last tobacco company with an import monopoly complained in the 1680s that several plantations had been established, but this cannot be verified (Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, p. 50).

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‘[t]wo million of ready money which annually … disappear in smoke and ashes’ through the tobacco import. Noticing that a prohibition of tobacco use could hardly be upheld, the deputation opted for domestic cultivation.76 Accordingly, a royal ordinance of 1724 urged the public to plant tobacco in order to reduce imports. It was argued that tobacco growing would not threaten grain production, as each farmer needed to reserve very little land for tobacco in order to cover his household’s needs. The collegium of commerce produced a pamphlet explaining how to proceed with the plantations. Successively from 1728 to 1746, imports of various qualities of raw tobacco were prohibited.77 In 1725, an ordinance recommended that towns should devote parts of their arable land to the plantation of tobacco.78 The strategy emerged that commercial tobacco plantation should develop into a town industry and provide raw material for the tobacco factories, while peasants should cultivate tobacco for their own needs.79 Soon, urban plantation owners expressed worries over peasant production. They argued that tobacco planting was an activity not suitable for peasants, who lacked the skills and the amounts of manure needed. Much labour had to be devoted to the preparation of tobacco and this would conflict with the need for labour for the main duty of peasants: grain production. Towns, on the other hand, had ample supplies of manure and plenty of flexible workers – women and children – who could tend the plants and prepare the leaves, it was claimed.80 In 1748 each town, apart from those furthest to the north and the east, was urged to pursue tobacco planting, and in the same year each tobacco factory was to use a certain proportion of domestically grown tobacco, otherwise they lost their privileges. Figure 4.2 shows the the site for a tobacco plantation in Uppsala some decades later. By 1752, county mayors were obliged to work for the increase of tobacco plantations in the towns, but not in the countryside, as tobacco would compete too much for the manure there. Several handbooks with instructions for tobacco growing (sometimes referring to Dutch examples) shared this concern.81 One exception was a presentation by And. Almqvist and Johan Neostadius (1731) of the methods used at their plantation in Gränna. They claimed grain growing was not adversely affected. On the contrary: as tobacco was planted on

  Svensson, ‘Ur den svenska tobaksodlingens historia’, pp. 291, 295–296.   Reinhold G. Modée, Utdrag utur alle ifrån den 7. December 1718./1791 utkomne

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publique handlingar (15 vols, Stockholm, 1742–1829), Vol. 1, pp. 546, 773; Modée, Utdrag, Vol. 2, pp. 1492–1496; Modée, Utdrag, Vol. 3, p. 2298. 78   Munthe, ‘Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia’, p. 71. 79   Cf. Leif Runefelt, Silkesodlingen i komparativt ljus – en jämförelse med tobaksodlingen (Stockholm, forthcoming). 80   Svensson, ‘Ur den svenska tobaksodlingens historia’ (1965), pp. 296–297. 81   Marcus, Den svenska tobaksindustrien, pp. 26–28.

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well-manured parts of the fallow, the grain area was not reduced and the grain harvests would be favoured by the ample manuring.82 In another pro-peasant cultivation pamphlet (1747), the vicar Olof Deckberg in the northern Uppland parish of Hållnäs proposed the use of Turkish tobacco. It was hardier and fitted the climate better than the common Virginia types. It also required less labour. Deckberg calculated the corresponding reduction in imports and the money saved, in a normal parish, if inhabitants grew their own tobacco. Over a couple of years he inspired and instructed the entire Hållnäs community to sow the Turkish plant, and thus tobacco dealers – who traversed the country selling mostly Dutch tobacco smuggled via Norway to peasants – from then on made detours around Hållnäs.83 Deckberg’s account makes clear that the use of tobacco was firmly established among peasants by the middle of the century. Linnaeus, a passionate smoker himself, provides more examples of this, and reported from his expedition to Lapland in 1732 that tobacco consumption was widespread among the Sami population.84 The tobacco industry developed forcefully and, similarly to the sugar refineries, it was in no need of the premiums other industries of the mercantilist age demanded.85 In 1764, 12.8 per cent of the total output value of all industries originated from tobacco manufacturing.86 From then on, there seems to have been a distinct temporary fall in production until the end of the century.87 Around 1760, circa 1000 tonnes of domestic raw tobacco were processed in the Swedish factories – less than a third of that amount was imported. This allowed for a per capita consumption of processed raw tobacco from the factories alone of 0.675 kg – to which home-prepared tobacco should be added. Tobacco cultivation was also a success, although the area planted never extended beyond 2000 hectares.88 By the middle of the century, tobacco was cultivated in 84 towns.   And. Almqvist and Johan Neostadius, En rätt rychtader swänsk tobaks-planta, eller utförlig underrättelse om tobaksplanteringen … (Stockholm, 1731). 83   Olof Deckberg, Kårt och tydelig beskrifning om den turkiska tobakens planterande (Stockholm, 1747). 84   Carl von Linné, Carl von Linnés Lappländska resa, 1732 (Stockholm, 1969), p. 92. Cf. sources for Norway quoted by Hutchinson, Doorway, p. 232. 85   Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia. 2, Vol. 2, pp. 596, 609. 86   Marcus, Den svenska tobaksindustrien, p. 21. 87   Betänkande, p. 141. 88   Munthe, Tobakens och tobakshanteringens historia, p. 79, referring to an estimation by an anonymous contemporary author. Smaller figures, not including household production, are given in Samuel Hermelin, Tal om näringarnas förhållande uti rikets särskilde lands-orter’ hållet för Kongl. Vetenskaps academien vid praesidii nedläggande den 4 augusti 1773 (Stockholm, 1774), and in Svensson, ‘Ur den svenska tobaksodlingens historia’ (1965), p. 300. 82

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Figure 4.2

Detail of map of Uppsala, 1770

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Note: A tobacco plantation, ‘Tobaks plantage’, is situated just outside the street structure of the town, to the left of the last street stretching from north-west to south-east. It is found about two quarters south-west of the Cathedral and at the same distance north-west of the Castle, on the fringe of an open field called Kungsgärdet (the ‘Royal Field’). Source: Map by Land surveyor Jonas Brolin (Uppsala University Library).

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It is hard to grasp the extent either of market or household production by peasants, but it is claimed that the reason for stagnation and eventually falling production in the towns was the low-cost competition of allegedly low quality tobacco from the peasants. This could mean that peasants refrained from buying tobacco and grew and prepared tobacco for their own consumption, but there are also reports that town plantations had problems selling their tobacco because of the influx of tobacco from the countryside which lowered prices, and that peasant producers were integrated into producing for urban factory markets from early on. From the late eighteenth century, the countryside share of domestic raw tobacco sold to factories increased, while urban cultivation, which had peaked around 1760, gradually ceased.89 The reason for the success of tobacco growing and manufacturing is easy to find. Early in the century, mass consumption of the stimulant was already emerging, and it increased further. The consumption of tobacco, like that of sugar, coffee and tea, was a vital part of the consumer revolution that profoundly changed patterns of life for most strata of West European populations, the Swedish included, from the eighteenth century.90 Or was it? Peasants eagerly obeyed the proposal from the authorities that they should grow and prepare their own tobacco, in order to restrict importation. But would that imply that they participated in a consumer revolution involving buying more goods on the market? Increased home growing of tobacco rather implies on their part a withdrawal from the market, given that peasants already smoked, and had previously bought all their tobacco. It seems that people first built up their habit of smoking. Later, given opportunity, seeds and instructions, many people of smaller means started growing their own tobacco, some also for sale. Presumably this helped to further establish and increase the use of tobacco and thus in the long run to strengthen the consumer revolution that was to come. Finally, particularly well-to-do peasants, earning increasing surpluses from selling grain, started to buy better quality tobacco.91 A note in the minutes of the peasant Estate of the 1765–66 Diet illustrates that refined smoking habits had emerged amongst better-off peasant farmers by the middle of the century. Despite a prohibition by the Estate for its members to visit certain clubs during the Diet session in Stockholm, seven fellows were observed in a prohibited club at Nygatan. All seven came up with invalid excuses. Finally, Erik Joensson from Närke admitted he had gone there to find out ‘where the good tobacco which had been available at the club could be bought’.92   Svensson, ‘Ur den svenska tobaksodlingens historia’, pp. 300–303.   Cf. Michael Kwass, ‘Consumption and the World of Ideas: Consumer Revolution

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and the Moral Economy of the Marquis de Mirabeau’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 37/2 (2004); Shammas, The Pre-industrial Consumer (1990). Cf., for Sweden, Ahlberger, Konsumtionsrevolutionen; for Norway, Hutchinson, Doorway, pp. 219–237. 91   Cf. Runefelt, Silkesodlingen. 92   Bondeståndets riksdagsprotokoll, 1765–1766, pp. 447–448.

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By mid eighteenth century, the use of tobacco, first smoked in pipes, later increasingly chewed or consumed as snuff, seems as widespread in Sweden as in any other European country. The policy towards cultivating, manufacturing and consuming tobacco was a showcase of mercantilist attitudes. On the one hand consumption was judged unnecessary, and on several occasions consumption excises were imposed.93 Tobacco was also included in the affluence legislation.94 On the other hand, granted that tobacco became a necessity, the government tried to restrict imports by promoting both domestic manufacturing and domestic cultivation. There was little resistance to the spread of tobacco. On the contrary, the authorities’ efforts to make peasants grow their own tobacco, together with protectionist steps to stimulate urban commercial plantations, helped peasant farmers engage in both subsistence and commercial production. While urban plantations succumbed by the end of the century to the competition of quality imported tobacco and low-cost competition from the peasants, rural tobacco growing survived as a commercial niche in a few localities. Conclusion The well-read agricultural reformers who turned up in Sweden in the eighteenth century had direct access to international influences and counterparts abroad. Some were active agriculturalists and amongst them we find men (and a few women, for example Eva de la Gardie, who proposed a method for distilling alcohol from potatoes95) with scientific pretentions, often with some kind of official status and acting as politicians, economics publishers or thinkers. This elite coterie populated academies and societies. They claimed to understand and make use of appropriate agricultural methods, and they made it their mission to distribute their findings amongst the peasants. Many of the ideas discussed adhered to international doctrinal trends. The popularity of farming among these social strata, as well as the perception of its national relevance, were such trends, as were the considerations about how farming should ideally be practised and about who was the ideal farmer. The discussion over the issue of property rights to land, of ownership and communal versus private use of land were also part of a pan-European discourse. There was a distinct utilist principle – compatible with mercantilist doctrines – in the search for resources and solutions within the borders of the nation. The land God had given to the Swedes was to be optimally cultivated. Fens and moors should be ploughed up. Forests should be thinned, opening up for the sun and wind   This happened in 1717 and 1747; see Marcus, Den svenska tobaksindustrien, p. 49.   25 June 1766, Modée, Utdrag, Vol. 8, pp. 7142–7147; 15 March 1770, Modée,

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Utdrag, Vol. 9, p. 2714. 95   Eva de la Gardie, ‘Försök At tillverka Bröd, Brännevin, Stärkelse och Puder af Potatoes’, Kongl. Vetenskapsacademiens handlingar 9/4 (1748), pp. 277–278.

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to keep moisture and frost away. It was claimed, by, for example, Jacob Fagott and later Jonas Dubb, that cultivation would actually improve the climate. Forests should be searched for manure substitutes (rotten wood, moss and ferns) and alternative fodder plants.96 Regionally developed implements were to be collected and tested, and the best should stand as models for reformed fabrication of ploughs and harrows to be distributed amongst peasant farmers. There were also responses from peasant farmers and from educated groups who stood socially close to them. Freeholders readily accepted enclosures, peasant blacksmiths contributed plough constructions, parish priests helped spread the threshing rollers and similarly the broad success of tobacco growing was grounded in the perceived advantage to the common peasant household of the crop. In this way, ideas of varying origins affected how the local peasants in all corners of the country worked their land. Resistance was not strong. Provincial peasants in Sweden had never been insulated from the big world: Peasants in mining areas delivering charcoal and transport services to the ironworks were at the far end of long credit chains that stretched all the way from iron importers in England. Peasants also provided the saltpetre used for supplying gunpowder to the Swedish armies in the seventeenth-century continental wars. But the cosmopolitan imprints on the changes appearing in the eighteenth century were substantial. Enclosures, which reshaped the landscape, were adaptations of internationally circulated ideas. In technology, versions of threshing methods common in west Asia and northern Africa since antiquity were suddenly widespread in northern Sweden – and hardly anywhere else – and in the Swedish soils a number of crops grew, reflecting the widening of the world 250 years earlier. Enclosures and convertible husbandry had been well known in some European regions for centuries. Threshing carts had been known for millennia, and even tobacco had a long world history, but it was in the cosmopolitan eighteenth century that all these phenomena penetrated rural Sweden.

96   Jacob Fagott, Svenska landtbrukets hinder ock hjälp (Stockholm, 1746); Jonas Dubb, ‘Åkerbrukets hinder och hjelpemedel’, Svenska Patriotiska Sällskapets Handlingar, Vol. 2 (1771), pp. 57–134.

TAStE To possess good taste – bon goût in French, buon gusto in Italian – was a crucial capacity for a person of standing in the early-modern period. Metaphorically derived from the sense of the palate, it was used for any kind of assessment or discrimination. It could concern painting, poetry or music, but also clothing, furniture and, brought back to its original sense, food and drink. Taste was associated with the ability to determine the beauty and grace of artefacts, as well as of humans. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when beauty was still generally considered to be an objective quality which was defined by perfect proportions, the notion of taste articulated a renegotiation of that norm. Because what characterises a judgement of taste is precisely that it cannot be decided by any rule, and therefore it cannot be taught, at least not in a pedantic way. Typical of the judgement of taste was instead the so-called jene-sais-quoi attitude: ‘I can tell you with certainty that this is distinguished by good taste, but if you do not perceive it yourself, I cannot explain to you why.’ Such a capacity was ideal for the social demarcation of the aristocracy from the lower classes, since it could only be cultivated through social intercourse in closed circles of persons of rank. In the eighteenth century, the concept of taste became more urgent than ever before. Two possible reasons can be discerned. First, the empiricist turn of the Enlightenment, which implied that beauty was not a universal, objective quality, but just the pleasurable response of the recipient. This resulted in a heated philosophical discussion on taste – from Lord Shaftesbury to David Hume and Immanuel Kant – engaging in attempts at saving the idea of a common standard of taste. Second, the increasing social mobility, which spurred members of the bourgeoisie to assimilate the habitus of the aristocracy, either in order to defy its supremacy, or aspiring to being raised to noble rank. The following chapter presents a case of such processes of social mobility and formation of taste: the educational journey of the son of an ironmaster and his academic tutor. It focuses specifically on their interaction with music and musical performances, and on the process of cultivation that was an important justification for such a European tour.

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Chapter 5

Travelling and the Formation of Taste: The European Journey of Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure 1758–1763 Lars Berglund

In the autumn of 1758, the two Swedes Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure embarked on a journey through Europe, a journey that was to last for five years. Important purposes of the trip were matters of manufacture, entrepreneurship and science. Lefebure was the son of a major ironmaster of French descent; Ferrner, his tutor, was an astronomer at Uppsala University. Still, a considerable part of their activities and interests during the journey was directed at the domain of art and culture. Such a journey offered a unique possibility to get first-hand experience of the rich cultural life of the European cities and, perhaps more important, to cultivate one’s taste to answer to the standards expected from a European, cosmopolitan gentilhomme. This study is an attempt to describe and analyse such processes of self-cultivation and taste formation, specifically focusing on Ferrner’s and Lefebure’s contacts and interaction with music. Jean Lefebure (1736–1804) was the son of Johan Henrik Lefebure, who descended from a French family of Huguenots who settled in Sweden in the seventeenth century. At the time of Jean’s journey, Johan Henrik Lefebure owned the brass foundry at Norrköping. A few years after Jean’s return to Sweden, the family obtained the Gimo Iron Works in Uppland, as well as some other estates, and Johan Henrik was ennobled at the same time.1 The family clearly had social aspirations and Jean’s educational trip was part of these ambitions. The journey that Lefebure and his tutor Ferrner made together followed the standard route for a Swedish grand tour: Holland, England, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and then back home. However, they visited several minor towns and locations in England and in France that did not belong to the regular tour. Apart from the educational journey for the young Jean Lefebure, the aim was to study different industrial establishments and processes, and to establish international business connections for the benefit of the Lefebure house. Besides, Bengt Ferrner had certain interests connected with his activities as an astronomer. 1   Carl Forsstrand, Köpmanshus i gamla Stockholm. Nya bidrag till Skeppsbroadelns historia (Stockholm, 1917), pp. 84–104.

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During the journey he studied and commissioned astronomical equipment for Uppsala University. The European journey of Lefebure and Ferrner was not unique for its time, but there is material preserved that makes it particularly interesting. First, there is the detailed and comprehensive diary of Bengt Ferrner.2 Second, there is a large collection of musical manuscripts, the Gimo Collection at Uppsala University Library, which comprises music that Jean Lefebure acquired during his journey. The diary and the collection together provide an unusual documentation of the role of music and cultural education during a European grand tour.3 During the eighteenth century, music and music making had gained an increasingly important role in the European upper classes. Most certainly, the use of an advanced cultivation of music as a means of social representation and demarcation was an old phenomenon in European society. In earlier times, however, it had been a concern mainly of royal and princely courts, and for the upper hierarchy of the church and the supreme aristocracy. The development of trade and manufacture during the early-modern period created a growing class of wealthy merchants and entrepreneurs, a group which tended to show great concern about the kind of cultural self-representation where music played an important role. As a result of the very same social and economic processes, the musical cultures of Western Europe became more and more internationalized. Cultural exchange between countries and regions increased as a result of increasing contacts and travels, and led to a multifarious prosperity of musical and cultural life in many cities, but also to a certain conformity. Not the least, Italian music and musicians were to dominate musical life in the larger European cities for a long time.4 Travelling, and especially the European grand tour, has received much scholarly attention during recent decades. Much focus has been on the reception of art and ancient monuments, on the collecting of antiquities, books and curiosities, and on encounters of national manners and customs.5 In this study, I will concentrate on the role of music and musical education, and more specifically focus on the concept of taste and the formation of musical taste, as a crucial part of that process   Published by Sten G. Lindberg: Bengt Ferrner, Resa i Europa: en astronom, industrispion och teaterhabitué genom Danmark, Tyskland, Holland, England, Frankrike och Italien 1758–1762 (Uppsala, 1956). 3   The musical aspects of Ferrner’s and Lefebure’s journey has been treated in Thomas Schönberg, Bengt Ferrner’s Musical Tour in Europe: The Musical Scene of the Mid 18th Century Through the Eyes of a Swedish Music-Loving Astronomer (diss., University of Hartford, 1993). The study presents English translations of the music-related entries from Ferrner’s diary with a brief introduction, but without any attempt to analyse the material. 4   Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals: The Galant Style, 1720–1780 (New York, 2003). 5   The literature in this field is vast. For an overview, see Jeremy Black, The British and the Grand Tour (London, 2011). 2

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of self-cultivation that was perhaps the most important motivation and goal for a large-scale journey such as the grand tour. Public Musical Life in Europe: Musical Events in the Diary of Bengt Ferrner During their journey, Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure attended a large number of public and semi-public concerts and opera performances. Ferrner has recorded most of these visits in his diary. Sometimes he gives a detailed report, sometimes he is more concise. Throughout certain parts of the journey, especially during their stays in Amsterdam, London and Paris, they visited theatre or music performances more or less every night.6 This was more or less mandatory during a grand tour, just like visits to the famous monuments of classical antiquity and artefacts of Renaissance art. As any traveller at that time, they saw what they were supposed to see: those things and events that were commonly considered worth seeing. The majority of the entries in Ferrner’s diary concern visits to the opera and theatre. In Amsterdam and Leiden, they went to see some opera performances, with two sisters who were only six and nine years old acting the main characters. Ferrner describes the event: The captivating gestures of these children, the accuracy of their singing and dancing is astonishing and almost incredible. A girl of 14 or 15 also had roles in the opera, and executed them well; but [she] did not measure up to the children.7

This performance exemplifies a kind of infant prodigy spectacle popular at the time. Just a few years later, a ten-year-old Mozart would perform at the Hollandsche Manege in Amsterdam together with his sister.8 In London, Ferrner and Lefebure heard Italian opera seria at the King’s Theatre, and several times went to Covent Garden to see The Beggar’s Opera. It still drew crowded houses, 30 years after its première, and Ferrner comments on the seemingly inexhaustible popularity of the piece:9 ‘It was strange to see the house more or less crowded, even though this piece has been played more than twenty times in a row, and as a proof to the taste of the public it was requested even more.’ Ferrner also observed that the Italian opera did not attract as large audiences as the more popular Beggar’s Opera:   It is not always clear from the diary to what extent Jean Lefebure accompanied Ferrner to visit the different events. Considering their relationship as tutor and disciple, it seems most likely that they attended most of these events together. 7   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 68f. 8   Cliff Eisen, New Mozart Documents: A Supplement to O.E. Deutsch’s Documentary Biography (Stanford CA, 1991), p. 10. 9   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 154. 6

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Here [at the Haymarket] was yet not a crowd comparable with that in the other play houses, something that undoubtedly partly depended on the high entrance, partly on that the foreign language kept the public from understanding what they heard performed with such sweet voices.10

In Paris, their visits to stage and music performances of different kinds were even more frequent. At the opera (Académie Royale de Musique), they attended a number of operas by Jean-Baptiste Rameau, mainly in the Tragédie lyrique genre. On at least three occasions they also saw Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Le Devin du Village there, paired with comic pieces by Rameau.11 They also saw plays at the Comédie-Italienne and at the Opéra-Comique at La Foire Saint-Laurent. Ferrner especially commends the Italian soprano Anna Maria Piccinelli for her singing in pieces such as La cantatrice italienne and L’Infant d’Harlequin. In July, they saw a legendary Italian opera buffa, Pergolesi’s La serva padrona. At the ComédieFrançaise they saw tragedies by Voltaire and Racine, and comedies by Molière and others. The opera houses and theatres of Paris were lively and noisy places for social gatherings. One went to the opera to see people and to exhibit oneself, to make business deals or just to mingle. The stage machinery and the constant dance numbers attracted the attention of the Parisian audience at least as much as the music and the singing.12 It is all the more interesting that Ferrner focuses so much on the music and the musical performances in his diary. He describes these events as musical performances, rather than as peculiar social events or lavish stage spectacles. This suggests that Ferrner had a more than average interest in music, and that he was a musical amateur in the literal sense: a Liebhaber with a specific interest in music. From the Italian stay of the two travellers, only the very first weeks are included in Ferrner’s diary. The entries at this point are much more sparse and laconic. Still, they testify to frequent visits, especially to the opera: ‘In the evening at the opera, as usual’, Ferrner writes in Turin, on 20 February 1762.13 Ferrner’s preserved letters from Italy reveals that he viewed Italy and Italian society with suspicion. In a letter to the secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Per Wilhelm Wargentin, dated in Bologna 8 January 1763, he writes: Moreover, according to my opinion Italy is less interesting than people think. There are with no doubt incomparable models in the arts; but there are in the entire country no painter, no sculptor and no architect of the first rank […]. The sciences are better supplied, especially mathematics, that has held its head high

  Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 159.   The prologue to Platée and Pigmalion, an acte de ballet. 12   James H. Johnson, Listening in Paris: A Cultural History (Berkeley, 1995), pp. 10 11

9–31.

  Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 544.

13

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during the last 10–15 years; otherwise, Italy is governed by prejudice, low and simple thoughts and slavish concepts, to the extent that a freeborn man has great difficulty in breathing freely.14

Still, Ferrner was impressed by the opera houses of Naples, Genoa, Turin and Milan. Soon after their arrival in Italy, he visited the opera in Genoa, where he heard Leonardo Vinci’s Artaserse: ‘This opera was different from the French theatre, and the eunuch Potensa […], Galeotti on violin and Phillipino on violin were particularly animated’. On 14 February, he writes from Turin: ‘At six o’clock we went to the Opera, where the magnificence of the hall, the decorations, and the voices of the castrato Aprile and San Gabrielli surpassed what we had formerly heard.’15 Ferrner and Lefebure arrived in north-western Italy during the carnival period, and thanks to this they had the chance to see a good number of opera performances. This possibility ceased as soon as the carnival ended, because the opera season in Italy was still restricted to the carnival, and sometimes a brief autumn season in September. In Milan, on 27 February 1763, the Swedes attended the last opera evening of that season: ‘In the evening we visited the last Opera of the carnival, attended to the younger Princess, whose older sister was ill, and visited the court ballet, that was excessively magnificent.’16 It was a paradox that came as a surprise to many travellers of this period, that Italy was not necessarily the best place to listen to Italian music. A contemporary English traveller, Philip Frances, remarks in 1772 that the selection of music was not very large in Italy and that the Italians were somewhat unconcerned, and makes a sharp-eyed observation about supply and demand. Intriguing, and illuminating, is his remark that people in Italy cared less about music than the British, but still had a better understanding of it: Much to my surprise, I hear little or no music; there is ten times more in London all the year round, than in any city in Italy, except perhaps during the carnival. Neither do the Italians appear to me half so fond of music as the English though I believe they understand it better. They have no such thing as ballad-singing, except upon a few particular days; no opera but at particular seasons, and then they never listen to it. I fancy we import all the music from Italy, as we do the claret from France. These commodities are not to be found upon the spot where they grow, but among people who can purchase them.17

    16   17   14

Letter from Bengt Ferrner 8/1 1763, Uppsala University Library. Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 542. Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 546. Philip Francis, Hints to travellers (1772); quoted from Jeremy Black, The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1992), p. 257. 15

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Thanks to the large numbers of highly qualified musicians, singers and composers from Italy, the strong vogue for Italian music at the time and the resulting huge demand for Italian musicians in the rest of Europe, as well as the relative lack of working opportunities in Italy, Italian music of high quality was heard in the large cities of Western Europe – but not to the same extent in Italy itself. Value Judgements and the Formation of Good Taste One of the most interesting and noticeable features of Ferrner’s entries on music are the frequently recurring evaluations. A large number of the reports of musical and theatrical events are accompanied by a value judgment, often involving comparisons with other performances that he attended. On 2 March 1759, Anthoni Grill brought Ferrner and Lefebure to a concert in Amsterdam. Ferrner writes: ‘Young Mr Grille took me and Mr Lefebure […] to Rochemonds concert at 7 o’clock, which I could not stand, because I had heard so much beautiful things the day before, so I left immediately.’18 Ferrner’s reaction of leaving the concert illustrates the importance attached to musical values and matters of taste. Ferrner’s entry about the performance of Paradise Lost in Covent Garden on 29 February 1760 is followed by a long comparative discussion on the quality of what he had heard: It was the first time I heard sacred music of such a kind, and I have to admit that it was worth the price of admission even though it was twice as much as what you pay at the entrance of the Comedy. Stanley the old man, who was blind, played solo on the organ in a way that was beyond everything I have previously heard of that kind; still it was said that he was just as far behind the deceased Handel as the common lot of organists are behind him. Miss Brent was given the opportunity to emit the full strength of her lovely voice that surpassed everyone’s presumption. The Italian Signor Giardini played the violin so that it sounded as vocal music. Connoisseurs told me that I would not get to hear anything like it until in Italy, and that it would be rare even there. The other music was beautiful, but did not come close to those three.19

The quotation gives an insight into the practice of cultural conversation that framed visits to concerts, opera and theatre. Expressing value judgements and discussing them, and comparing different performances and pieces, as well as personal impressions of the event, was an integral part of the social activity of listening to public performances of music. As a foreign visitor, you were expected to pass judgement over the quality and level of the local events, and present comparisons   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 75.   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 215.

18 19

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with what you had heard at other places. Interesting also is the reference to remarks made by ‘connoisseurs’, regarding the music Ferrner and Lefebure were about to hear in Italy. As we shall see, comparison and discrimination between the musical cultures in different countries was an issue of heated debate at the time. The urge to evaluate and compare is obvious also in the observation on John Stanley’s organ playing. After Georg Friedrich Handel’s death less than a year before, Stanley had recently taken over the responsibility of arranging the performances of oratories at Covent Garden during Lent. When Ferrner and Lefebure visited a concert in Soho just a few days later, he contrasted it with the performance he had heard at Covent Garden: Mr Lefebure and I went to a public concert at Dean Street, Soho, and there heard Sibrutini play the violoncello, Mr Helendahl, a Dutch, on solo violin and Miss Fredrick sing, apart from some other music. All three of them were excellent; but Helendahl was nothing compared to Giardini, neither Miss Frederick compared to Miss Brent.20

More than six months later, Ferrner recalled that concert, after having attended a Concert spirituel in Paris: Gavinés played the Solo Violin excellently, being very close [in standard] to Giardini in London, if not really there. Balbastre played very well […], but did not live up to Stanley in London. Finally, M:lle [La Miere] did not sing bad at all. She has an extraordinary voice.21

The very next day, Ferrner was able to compare Gavinés’ violin playing to a certain Piffet, who had replaced him on the violin: In the evening I went to the Tuilleries for Concert spirituel, where the same persons played as the day before, with the exception that Piffet played solo on the violin instead of Gavinés. I thought that this Piffet played better than Gavinés.22

These quotes reflect an extraordinary chain of remembrance and comparison, which suggests that these efforts were part of an orderly strategy of education. On occasion, Ferrner’s assessments could diverge from expert opinion. On 13 November 1759, he and Lefebure were present at the autumn première at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket. They heard an Italian opera, Vologese, probably in the version by Giuseppe Sarti. Ferrner was impressed by what he saw and heard, especially by the Italian singers, and most of all the castrato Emanuele Cornacchini,   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 218f.   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 356f. 22   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 357. 20 21

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a newly recruited primo uomo who made his first appearance at Haymarket on this very occasion:23 Signor Cornachini and Signora Mattei’s voices surpassed the others, and especially Cornachini was beyond everything I have ever heard before. Those who had heard Italian operas in London for many years said that it had never been so perfect. Cornachini had recently arrived.24

Ferrner heard Cornacchini and Mattei together again in April, in a performance of Antigona, and he again commends Cornacchini and Mattei, comparing them to the other singers: I went to hear the Italian opera, Antigona, and had perfect pleasure by Signor Cornachini’s and Signora Mattei’s excellent voices. The other singers had both voice and art enough to capture; but it was their misfortune to be in the two formers company.25

However, in his treatise A general history of music, the famous composer and writer Charles Burney took a different opinion: CORNACCHINI, a new first man, superseded Potenza; the public, however, gained but little by the change, as his voice was not good, and his style of singing by no means grand or captivating.26

Thus, even though Ferrner supported his judgement by experienced listeners, ‘who had heard Italian operas in London for many years’, his assessment clashed with an expert critic such as Burney. Most, if not all of Ferrner’s opinions regard performers and performances, rather than the qualities of composers and works. There are two possible explanations. First, that assessing musical compositions was a difficult task, which demanded some kind of analytical or interpretative language only available to the professionally trained expert. Second, and probably more important, that music was regarded mainly as a performance art form. The assessments of music therefore often pertained to performances rather than to the music as a composition or textual structure.

  Philip H. Highfill, Jr, Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Langhans, A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 1660–1800, Vol. 3 (Carbondale, 1975), p. 498. 24   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 159. 25   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 232f. 26   Charles Burney, A general history of music, from the earliest ages to the present period, Vol. 4 (London, 1789), p. 472. 23

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The constant urge to evaluate and compare in Ferrner’s diary demonstrates an important purpose of a journey like this. The kind of education or cultivation that the tourists were expected to acquire not only had to do with dry and practical knowledge, but just as much with the formation of taste and sound judgement. It was linked to a capacity for judgement closely connected with the concept of good taste, which was of crucial importance for any aspiration to self-cultivation and to associating oneself with the ideal of the galant homme. The German composer and music theorist Johann David Heinichen pointed out the connection between travelling and the cultivation of taste in his 1728 treatise, Der General-Bass in der Composition: It occurs to me now, what certain authors has established, namely that we to a certain extent need to benefit from other nations. But what exactly should we benefit? Or, to make it more plain, why do we bear such effort, danger and expenses to travel to other countries, where Music finds more culture (as well as more Liebhaber and Kenner) than by us? […] Answer: simply and solely to adjust our good taste.27

The justification of travelling by cultural exchange and the formation of taste could not be put much more clearly. The Austrian composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux discusses music and taste at length in the conclusion to his seminal counterpoint treatise Gradus ad parnassum (Vienna, 1725), in a rather amusing passage that addresses the troublesome question of subjective and objective taste: Aloys [The Teacher]. There is almost nothing more frequently talked of than taste. So we hear the Italians say: Egli e di buon gusto. The French: II a le gout parfaitement bon. Latin: Est homo exquisiti gustfis. If only it were as easy to define taste as it is to declare that it exists! Although taste is, strictly speaking, an attribute of the palate, it can in a broader sense be applied to a person who has correct and discriminating judgement. […] But what judge of good and bad taste can we set up? – since the proverb “I know what I like” borders on the trite, likewise “Taste is not a matter for argument, let no one be the judge in a subjective matter”. The rustic is more delighted by his pipe than by any artificial concord of music. By the same token M. Bellegarde says: “There was a man, by no means uncivilized, who, displeased by the nightingales’ song but on the contrary miraculously attracted to the croaking of the frogs, had a house built for himself in a swamp, isolated and surrounded by no trees; so day and night he might have the opportunity of enjoying music which was to him so exquisite. On the other hand, because there were no trees, there could be no place for the

  Johann David Heinichen, Der General-Bass in der Composition (Dresden, 1728),

27

p. 23.

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nightingales to alight, and wear him out with their singing”. What do you think, Joseph, about the sublimity of this taste? Joseph [The Disciple]. I think it not undeservedly calls for some criticism.28

Even though taste as a concept related to the evaluation of artistic artefacts and beauty had developed from the metaphor of taste as a pleasure of the palate, there was a crucial difference between the taste for food and the taste for arts in eighteenth-century thought. Both demanded first-hand experience, but whereas the taste for food was regarded as an individual and personal matter, the taste for beauty and art was not. On the contrary, the evaluation of art demanded a standardised, mutual and communal agreement.29 In this sense, aesthetic judgement was related to moral judgement and the conception of a common good. The standpoint that discrimination of good taste had to answer to common standards, just as assertions of moral good did, was a common one at this time, and a problem that occupied leading contemporary intellectuals. Both Montesquieu and Voltaire contributed to the article on goût in the Encyclopédie. The brief contribution by Voltaire perhaps best captures a conventional contemporary view on the cultivation of good taste. In his view it was understood that, in the arts, there exists something such as a genuine good taste, as well as a depraved taste, and that in the arts there is genuine beauty (des beautés réelles).30 According to Voltaire, this can also include entire nations, and he concludes his essay with the remark that ‘le goût n’a été le partage que de quelques peuples de l’Europe’. Taste could be good and depraved, both in individuals and nations. According to Voltaire, many countries both outside and inside Europe were still lacking in good taste in the judgement of the arts. The relation between individual taste and the standard of good taste was one of the burning issues in philosophical discussion. A more tentative, but also more ambitious, attempt at coming to terms with the problem is found in David Hume’s late essay, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ (1757). In the sixth paragraph he states: It is very natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste; a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another.31

  Translation in Johann Joseph Fux and Susan Wollenberg, ‘Gradus ad Parnassum’ (1725): Concluding Chapters’, Music Analysis 11:2–3 (1992), pp. 209–243. 29   Dabney Townsend and Carolyn Korsmeyer, ‘Taste’, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Vol. 4, edited by Michael Kelly (New York, 1998), pp. 355–360. 30   Voltaire, art. ‘Goût’, L’encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert. Available at http:// xn--encyclopdie-ibb.eu/G.html, accessed 30 March 2013. 31   David Hume, Four Dissertations (London, 1757), pp. 207–208. 28

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Hume’s solution to this conflict was to entrust the judgement of taste to ideal critics: knowledgeable and unprejudiced expert appraisers.32 To decide who should qualify as such an ideal critic, Hume gives five crucial criteria that are meant to guard the judgements against such individual and circumstantial conditions that could threaten the notion of a universal standard. These criteria were: 1) a delicacy of taste; 2) a lot of practice; 3) the constant comparing of artworks; 4) a lack of prejudice; 5) good sense.33 Hume’s discussion of the ideal critic can help us understand the process of cultivation reflected in Ferrner’s diary. Even though Bengt Ferrner and Jean Lefebure did not aspire to become ideal critics in Hume’s sense, their aim was to improve their capacities to make sound judgements of taste, measured against a universal, or perhaps rather, a cosmopolitan standard. The many attempts at offering value judgements and the urge for comparison are clearly in line with Hume’s demand for practice and constant comparing: It is impossible to continue in the practice of contemplating any order of beauty, without being frequently obliged to form comparisons between the several species and degrees of excellence, and estimating their proportion to each other. A man, who has had no opportunity of comparing the different kinds of beauty, is indeed totally unqualified to pronounce an opinion with regard to any object presented to him. By comparison alone we fix the epithets of praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree of each.34

This demand more or less necessitated travel and first-hand experience of many different repertoires and artists, just as Heinichen points out in the passage quoted above – experiences that were supposed to work as antidotes to prejudiced judgements. Remarkable in this context is that Ferrner and Lefebure met with David Hume in Edinburgh, and had the opportunity to converse with him at length. To judge from Ferrner’s diary, they mainly discussed state politics and the Swedish form of government.35 The first and the last of Hume’s criteria – delicacy of taste and good sense – may appear to be natural, innate capacities. From Hume’s empiricist perspective, they were not, but on the contrary could be cultivated by practice and experience.36 With good sense, in this context, he seems to have in mind the intellectual ability   Hume, Four Dissertations, pp. 223–229; see also Noel Carroll, ‘Hume’s Standard of Taste’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43:2 (1984), pp. 181–194, and James Shelley, ‘Hume’s Double Standard of Taste’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52:4 (1994), pp. 437–445. 33   My reading of Hume owes a lot to Noel Carroll’s study. 34   Hume, Four Dissertations, p. 223. 35   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 298f., 334. 36   Carroll, ‘Hume’s Standard of Taste’, p. 184. 32

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to interpret and discuss works of art, to understand their structural properties, but also to understand the circumstances and intentions behind them.37 This ability could be trained and cultivated through experience and practice, not least through conversation. Voltaire, too, was aware that taste could be improved and sophisticated through practice, even though his view was more elitist: ‘on corrige souvent le défaut d’esprit qui donne un goût de travers’.38 These are examples of a new, more open-ended and encompassing notion of taste, compared to the aristocratic ideal of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It can be compared to the Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Graciàn’s notion of taste as a more intuitive capacity of discrimination innate in the courtier by breeding, disclosed in his El Hèroe (1637). To Glareán this was a capacity almost impossible to learn, since it was governed not by rules that can be taught, but by a delicate and spontaneous sensibility of a non-conceptual je-ne-sais-quoi quality.39 When the capacity for judgement and discrimination of good taste became conceived of as generally accessible, it also became an important part of education and selfcultivation for the bourgeoisie. Connected to this development is a shift in the contemporary theorising and legitimisation of travel itself. During the previous centuries the educational journey had been a matter of systematic gathering and organisation of knowledge and information, according to a well-developed educational programme, the so-called ars apodemica. As Justin Stagl has shown, by the end of the seventeenth century, this way of exploring the world was reaching its end. Everything worth knowing according to the old apodemic tradition was by then published and accessible from the safety of the private library.40 Thus, the aims of travel partially changed, especially so for members of the educated upper-class bourgeoisie such as Ferrner and Lefebure, not yet belonging to, but aspiring to, nobility. The knowledge and capacities worth aspiring to were those that could still only be acquired by travel: first-hand experiences of manners, artefacts and cultural events, and not least, involvement in a critical, assessing, conversational culture around such events and artefacts, marked by up-to-date standards in the leading cultural environments of the continent. As Vernon Hyde Minor has pointed out, this concept of good taste did not signify a stable aesthetic quality, but instead worked as a ‘marker in the game of discourse, a term used for persuasion and control’.41 It was a flexible capacity for aesthetic discrimination that enabled the holder to keep abreast of new fashions,

  Hume, Four Dissertations, pp. 226f.; Carroll, ‘Hume’s Standard of Taste’, pp. 184f.   Voltaire, ‘Goût’, §6. 39   Vernon Hyde Minor, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste 37 38

(New York, 2006), esp. pp. 26–35. 40   Justin Stagl, A History of Curiosity. The Theory of Travel 1550–1800 (Chur, 1995), pp. 81f. 41   Hyde Minor, Death of the Baroque, p. 27.

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and be on top in debates on beauty and novelty – and thus also a discursive and rhetorical skill, used as a tool for social distinction. Assessing National Styles: French versus Italian Singing Two themes are constantly recurring in Ferrner’s evaluations of music and performances: the high estimation of Italian music and musicians, and the low opinion of the French. After having attended his first Concert spirituel in Paris on 11 November 1761, Ferrner wrote: At five o’clock we went to the Tuileries Palace, where a sacred music, Concert spirituel, was performed. An air in the Italian taste with French words, and a solo violin, was the only enjoyment for my part. The rest was in the dry and monotonous French taste.42

On 8 May, he saw an opera buffa at the Comédie-Italienne, and again got the opportunity to compare the national styles: After that I went to the Italian comedy to hear the piece la Cantatrice italienne. Mademoiselle Piccinelli, in the leading role, had recently arrived from Italy and has only appeared once here at the theatre. Her voice, appearance and delightful manner captivated the audience in her favour, so that I have never before heard so general and iterated applauds. I do not know if it was because I had heard nothing but the unpleasant and tedious French singing, so that I thought I had never before heard a sweeter voice. This singer should give the Italian singing advantage over the French.43

One week later he saw the same piece again, and it motivated a new entry in his diary: Thereafter I went to M:r Clairaut and M:elle Gouillé, who accompanied me to the Italian comedy to hear the excellent singer Piccinelli in the piece La cantatrice italienne. Clairaut said that he had never heard a more pleasing voice and took it as a certain proof of the inverted musical taste of his compatriots that so many boxes in the comedy house were empty, when he had seen them crammed at occasions when nothing but the French-trained singing was offered.44

On 20 May he saw the same piece a third time, and now the auditorium was full. It appeared as if Miss Piccinelli ‘had already made more impression on the French   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 347f.   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 382. 44   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 384. 42 43

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audience for the favour of the Italian music, than the many pamphlets that were published in the question some years before’.45 We must note that these judgements were not so much a manifestation of Ferrner’s or Clairaut’s personal and individual taste. On the contrary, Ferrner took sides in a heated, ongoing debate, and did so in a rather conventional way. The debate about the supremacy of Italian music over the French was a more or less mandatory subject in conversations surrounding the social sphere of music and musical performances. Here are two very similar statements from English travellers, several years apart:46 In Paris I attended several Operas, whose musick pleased not my ears, and is much inferior to the English and Italian. (Joseph Shaw, Letters to a nobleman, 1709) The opera with the old style of French music than which, nothing in nature can be more disagreeable. For my part I could not help asking the Gentleman who sat next to me whether they were singing an air or a Recitative it mattered not which for both are equally detestable. (Robert Wharton, letter to Miss Lloyd, Paris, 27 February 1775)

In 1765, James Boswell travelled from Italy to Marseille, and he affectionately comments on a performance he heard on arrival in France: The French squeaking and grimaces were insufferable to a man just come from the operas of Italy. O Italy! Land of felicity! True seat of all elegant delight! […] Thy divine music has harmonized my soul.47

This debate about national styles dated far back, but had climaxed in the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the heated polemic between François Raguenet and Jean Laurent Le Cerf de la Viéville.48 Not long before Ferrner’s and Lefebure’s stay in Paris, it had flared up again with the Querelle des Bouffons, at its height between 1752 and 1754. These are the ‘pamphlets’ referred to by Ferrner in the quote from 20 May. Several of the pieces that Ferrner and Lefebure saw in Paris were connected with the querelle: it all began with Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, performed by Eustachio Bambini’s troupe of Italian singers in 1752. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Le devin du village was an offspring of their appearances in Paris, and his way of taking a stand in the dispute.   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 388f.   Quoted from Jeremy Black, Italy and the Grand Tour (New Haven, 2003), p. 127. 47   Daniel Heartz, Music in European Capitals. The Galant Style 1720–1780 (New 45

46

York and London, 2003), p. 55. 48   Georgia Cowart, The Origins of Musical Criticism. French and Italian Music 1600–1750 (Ann Arbor, 1981).

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This controversy was about more than just mere musical taste and aesthetics. It was also a disguised political and constitutional debate. To take sides for the French Tragedie lyrique of the Royal Opera in Paris was to take sides for l’ancien régime, and the supporters of the Italian opera buffa were thus silently voicing critique against it.49 Beyond these immediate political implications, to choose the Italian style before the French at this time was also to profess an adherence to a cosmopolitan and aristocratic taste and to the membership of le beau monde. Interestingly, the interest in music and theatre that Ferrner demonstrates in his diary is not answered by a corresponding interest in, for instance, visual art or architecture. He visited an exhibition of historical painting at the ‘Society for encouraging arts & manufactories’ in London, but just makes a few disinterested remarks about the likeness of the portraits and relates some anecdotes about the persons depicted.50 His attitude to architecture and gardening was for the most part of a very pragmatic nature: he remarks that houses are well built and well kept, and seems more interested in the fertility and usefulness of a landscape than its beauty. He found the park of Versailles to be triste, and an articulation of ‘childish vanity and caprice’, and adds: ‘such is the outcome when we go against nature or try to force it’.51 Instead, he preferred English landscape gardens such as Howard Castle and Studley Park. He praises the natural beauty of the latter, and concludes: ‘The greatest art here consists in having in such a masterly way hidden the art, so that it is hardly noticed.’ Ferrner’s disapproval of Louis XIV’s baroque gardens at Versailles can be closely related to his negative assessment of French opera in the tradition of the Tragédie lyrique. Ferrner followed his time in preferring simplicity and naturalness to the complex and artificial. The Collecting of Music and the Trade in Musical Prints and Manuscripts Jean Lefebure appears occasionally in the diary of Ferrner, but is still a slightly evasive figure, especially when it comes to musical skills and interests. That he took an interest in musical things is clear, though, from the large collection of musical manuscripts that he brought home from the journey. One year after Lefebure’s return to Sweden, his father bought the Gimo estate. Jean inherited the property in 1767 and the collection was stored in the library there. After the estate had been sold in the 1930s, the manuscripts were donated to the Uppsala University Library.52 The catalogue published in 1963 lists 360 items,   William Weber, ‘La musique ancienne in the waning if the ancien Régime’, Journal of Modern History 56:1 (1984), pp. 58–88; Elisabeth Cook, ‘Querelle des bouffons’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, available at (accessed February 2011). 50   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, pp. 302f. 51   Lindberg, Bengt Ferrner, Resa, p. 383. 52   Davidsson, Catalogue, pp. 15f. 49

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including an original thematic catalogue that was put together in Italy. A small number of these manuscripts were acquired in Sweden after Lefebure’s return in 1763, but most of the collection stems from his stay in Italy. How, then, did he come by all of these musical manuscripts? One thing that Åke Davidsson does not pay attention to in his catalogue is the rather small number of recurring copyists in the collection. An analysis of the papers used in the collection shows, moreover, that it consists of a relatively limited number of source groups with common provenance.53 Thus, it seems that Lefebure did not buy or receive the manuscripts one at a time during his visits to different Italian towns, as has been presumed.54 Instead, he must have bought them by the bundle from a limited number of dealers. Judging from the regular and skilled execution of these manuscripts, they were produced in the workshops of professional scribes. An entry in Charles Burney’s diary, from his visit to Vienna in 1772, gives a hint of what kind of trade Jean Lefebure came in contact with during his stay in Italy: After [that I] flew home, to pack, and to pay; here, among other things, I was plagued with copyists the whole evening; they began to regard me as a greedy and indiscriminate purchaser of whatever trash they should offer; but I was forced to hold my hand, not only from buying bad music, but good. For every thing is very dear at Vienna, and nothing more so than music, of which none is printed.55

In his satirical treatise Il teatro alla moda (1720), the Venetian composer Benedetto Marcello banters about the same business: Copyists will arrange with the impresario to work for a lump sum. Then they will hire someone else to do their work for six soldi a page, including paper, ink, pens, blotting sand, etc. When they copy out parts from the score they will include many wrong words, clefs, accidentals, etc., and they will leave entire pages blank.

  These observations stem from my thorough examination of the Gimo Collection, the more detailed results of which will be published separately elsewhere. 54   Davidsson, Catalogue, pp. 14f.; Schönberg, pp. 30f. 55   Charles Burney, An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands, ed. Percy A. Scholes, Vol. 2 of Dr. Burney’s Musical Tours in Europe (London, 1959), p. 124. 53

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They will sell to anyone from out of town who is interested in the latest opera’s arias some old sheets with any piece of music written on it, but on which they put the names of some leading composers.56

To be a music copyist was a registered trade, and could be a lucrative one, at least in the European capitals. In fact, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a living as a professional copyist for several years. Even though the production of printed music was booming after 1700, copying music by hand had many advantages. It was quicker, more flexible, but also more exclusive. The most regular customers were professional institutions such as opera enterprises, theatres and court music ensembles. They needed sets of parts prepared for their productions, often in a great hurry. Since every new staging of an opera necessarily meant a large number of changes, revisions and new scenes – adapting to new singers, local taste, or just for the novelty of it – it made no sense to have operas printed. Lefebure’s collection, as well as the quotes from Burney and Marcello, suggest that professional music copyists had found a new, lucrative category of customers: tourists at the large cultural centres, eager to buy new and fashionable music. In contrast to sellers of printed music, the manuscript copyist could claim to offer unique and exclusive products – musical pieces that could not be obtained elsewhere. This was true concerning the repertoire of the Italian opera houses, since this was the only way to get hold of opera music. Copyists outside the opera houses offered copies of the most popular arias of the latest production, and possibly even produced single numbers on demand. The large group of opera aria scores in Lefebure’s collection most likely originates from enterprises of that kind.57 Why did Lefebure buy and bring home all this music? What was the use and purpose of it? Were the manuscripts bought to be played, or were they just collectors’ items? A large part of Lefebure’s collection comprises instrumental ensemble music. There are about 140 trio sonatas, mainly for two violins and bass, and a number of sonatas for two to three mixed instruments, such as violin, flute and violoncello. This is the kind of repertoire one would expect to find in the library of a person of Lefebure’s standing, at least assuming that the music was bought to be played and used. Instrumental chamber music was at the core of domestic music making, and instruments such as violin, flute and violoncello were typical for upper-class families playing at social gatherings. Much of the small-scale ensemble music of the mid eighteenth century, by composers such as Carlo Antonio Campioni, Baldassare Galuppi or Francesco Zanetti, was produced for the domestic market, and printed in sets, usually of six or twelve sonatas. Several of the sonata 56   Translation by Reinhard G. Pauly, The Musical Quarterly 35:1 (1949), pp. 85–105, pp. 94ff. 57   Davidsson, Catalogue, p. 14.

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manuscripts that Lefebure purchased are most likely copied from such printed collections.58 Other parts of the collection are less likely candidates for domestic music making. There are about 50 Italian opera sinfonias by leading opera composers such as Baldassare Galuppi and Nicolo Jomelli, but also by minor or even totally obscure names such as Pasquale Crichelli, and a certain Paolo Risi. These are orchestral pieces, scored for two violins, viola, double bass, and pairs of oboes and French horns. Even though the size of an orchestra at this time was far from that of a modern symphony orchestra, these works call for larger resources than was typical for a private evening of music. Several of the opera arias in the collection call for similar instrumental resources, since they do not contain simplified aria arrangements with reduced scoring, but entire orchestral scores. Such opera arias were too demanding to be mastered by average amateurs. The conclusion is that these manuscripts were purchased mainly as collector’s items and souvenirs. The collection of musical manuscripts in this sense formed part of a general urge to collect and bring home cultural artefacts: books, paintings, antiquities and rare and curious objects of different kinds. Aria scores sold outside the opera houses were at the same time souvenirs in a literal sense: something to bring home from a memorable opera performance. Judgement of taste and musical value were highly topical also in connection with the gathering and collecting of music. In June 1764, the traveller Clas Alströmer wrote home from London to his older brother Patrik in Sweden. Apparently, Clas was charged with buying music in England to have it sent to Patrik, who was a skilled amateur musician, very knowledgeable about music.59 However, Clas felt compelled to make excuses for the quality of the music he sent: Excuse me, for not having been able to choose music in a good way. You know that I have been a poor musician, and I must confess that I am even worse now, because I have not had the time for it.60

Material traces of this culture of evaluation can also be seen in the the Gimo Collection manuscripts. A large number of the sources have inscriptions in Italian   The 22 sonatas by Campioni derive from collections printed in Paris and London between 1756 and 1762, and the sonatas by Gaetano Pugnani can be found in a print published in Paris in 1756, reprinted in London c. 1763. 59   These manuscripts make up part of the Alströmer Collection, today at the Music and Theatre Library in Stockholm – a music collection related to the Gimo Collection. On Patrik Alströmer, see Jan Ling, ‘Apollo Gothenburgensis: Patrick Alströmer och Göteborgs musikliv vid 1700-talets slut’, Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning 81 (1999), pp. 53–94, and Ekonomi och musik i 1700-talets Göteborg: en tidsspegel utifrån en samtida dagbok, ed. Bertil Andersson (Göteborg, 2005). 60   Letter from Clas Alströmer 14/6 1763, Alströmerska Brevsamlingen, Uppsala University Library. 58

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in the upper corner, indicating their value. Two kinds of estimations appear. On the one hand strict evaluations, such as buona (‘good’), or migliore (‘better’), on the other hand indications of novelty: nuovo (‘new’), or primo nuovo (‘absolutely new’). These indications are made by one and the same hand, possibly by the same person that Lefebure entrusted with preparing the catalogue of the collection, before it was shipped home to Sweden. The acquisition and ordering of Lefebure’s large collection are good examples of the entrepreneurship that had developed in Italy, both around the distribution of music and in supplying souvenirs and collectors’ items for foreign travellers. This had turned into nothing more than a business, and it was difficult for the individual traveller to find rare and unique objects, unless he had appropriately developed skills. Travellers such as Jean Lefebure and Clas Alströmer were dependent on advisers and dealers, some more cynical than others. At the same time, a manuscript of an original and novel composition by an Italian composer was an object of value and a sign of cosmopolitan identity, notwithstanding the quality of the music contained. I will try to exemplify this point with a specific case: the mandolin music in the Gimo Collection. Jean Lefebure and the Neapolitan Mandolin A specific set of 25 manuscripts in the Gimo collection comprises compositions for the Neapolitan mandolin. At the time of Lefebure’s journey, this instrument was an entirely new phenomenon in European musical culture. It had been invented in Naples some time during the 1740s, possibly by the Vinaccia family of instrument builders.61 The idea behind the instrument was simple but clever. It is a relative of the older baroque mandolino or mandola, and thus also of the Renaissance lute. However, in contrast to these instruments, the Neapolitan mandolin had only four string pairs, and was tuned in fifths, just like a violin (G-D-A-E). Thanks to this, the instrument was easy to master for anyone who already knew how to play the violin. The title of the first mandolin tutorial by Leone alludes to this connection: Méthode raisonnée pur passé du violon à la mandoline, et de d’archet à la plume; i.e., a method to go from the violin to the mandolin, or from the bow to the quill.62 At the same time, the mandolin was easier to learn for a beginner. While it takes quite some practice and pain to master the physically somewhat awkward bow technique on a violin, the sound on the mandolin was produced by a quill plectrum. Even a beginner can produce a pleasing sound more or less without practice on this instrument, whereas it takes many weeks of practice to approach something like a bearable tone on the violin. Moreover, while it takes years of practice to play in perfect pitch on a violin, the mandolin has frets, making it easier to play in tune. Since tuning and range were the same, basically all music   James Tyler and Paul Sparks, The Early Mandolin (Oxford, 1989), pp. 81–84.   Répertoire International des Sources Musicales A/I, Vol. 5 (Kassel et al., 1975),

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RISM L 1980, p. 312.

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composed for the violin could be played on the Neapolitan mandolin. Thus, even though it was a new invention, there was already a large repertoire available for it. Thanks to it being so easily mastered, and thanks to the soft and pleasing sound, it was ideal for domestic music making among amateurs. Not least, it seems to have been considered specifically suitable for women. Many contemporary pictures of mandolin players portray women playing. In contrast to common amateur instruments such as the violin and the flute, the mandolin could be played with the bodily grace and charm that was expected from women. Contemporary paintings of scantily clad female mandolin players even suggest that the instrument was associated with certain erotic overtones, and it may have been an instrument favoured by courtesans. It is not a coincidence that Don Giovanni in Mozart’s opera uses the Neapolitan mandolin to accompany his seductive serenades.

Figure 5.1

Detail from the frontispiece of Leones Méthode raissonée, depicting a female mandolin player

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Figure 5.2

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Title page of Giovanni Battista Gervasio’s sonata in G, with the dedication to ‘Sig:r Cavalier Lefebure’

Source: Uppsala University Library, GIMO 145.

The novelty of this instrument, and the multiple practical advantages described above, resulted in a veritable mandolin boom in the 1760s, especially in Paris.63 From 1760 on, the Neapolitan mandolin became the instrument à la mode. Evidence of its popularity and fashionability at that time is given by the famous last portrait of Madame de Pompadour, painted by François-Hubert Drouai in 1764, where she is depicted with a Neapolitan mandolin lying in front of her. Two composers of mandolin music dominate in Lefebure’s collection: Emmanuele Barbella with 11 manuscripts, and Giovanni Battista Gervasio with 10. Barbella was an Italian violin player of the first rank. At the time of Lefebure’s and Ferrner’s visit to Italy, he was engaged in the orchestra of the theatre of San Carlo, the most important opera house in Naples.64 The sonatas and duets by him in the Gimo collection were most likely composed for violin or mandolin ad lib – around 1765–70 he published such collections in Paris, to meet the growing   Tyler and Sparks, The Early Mandolin, pp. 87f.   Chappell White, ‘Barbella, Emanuele’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,

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available at (accessed February 2011).

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demand for mandolin music in the city. The title of his 1771 sonata collection, Six duos […], très faciles, shows that he had the amateur market in mind. Gervasio was one of the leading mandolin players of his time, with a long career as a travelling virtuoso. In 1767 he published the first playing tutorial for the Neapolitan mandolin.65 Very little is known about his background and his more precise whereabouts, but Lefebure and Ferrner actually seem to have met him in Italy. One of Gervasio’s pieces in the Gimo collection bears a dedication to Jean Lefebure: ‘Composta per divertimenti del eccellentissimo Signor Cavalier Lefebure’ (Figure 5.2). Admittedly, the dedication looks somewhat strange. Lefebure’s name has been added afterwards, in a different ink. Still, it seems unlikely that this should be a pure scam, and that Lefebure would accept a fake dedication. A more plausible explanation is that a musician such as Gervasio had manuscript pieces of this kind prepared for foreign visitors, and either sold them or offered them as gifts.

Figure 5.3

The beginning of Gervasio’s sonata

Source: Uppsala University Library, GIMO 145.

65   James Tyler and Paul Sparks, ‘Mandolin [mandola, mandoline, mandolino]’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, available at (accessed February 2011).

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If this is a correct assumption, and the manuscript was copied either by Gervasio, or by a copyist in his service, the major part of the Neapolitan mandolin works in Lefebure’s collection must derive from their contact with Gervasio. This particular copyist has written a major part of the sources (see Figure 5.3). Lefebure acquired these pieces in 1762, possibly when he and Ferrner were in Naples. One of the Gervasio pieces, Gimo 142, is explicitly dated 1762. This means that the 25 sources in Lefebure’s collection belong to the very oldest preserved pieces of music for the Neapolitan mandolin. The first printed collections of music for the mandolin a quatre cordes were published by Leone in Paris in 1761 and 1762. There seem to be no manuscripts preserved that are older than the Gimo sources.66 Lefebure’s possession of these pieces says something about the business of cultural tourism and the music market. Lefebure and Ferrner went with the tide of musical fashion: they visited the right events, tried to make the proper judgements, and had a flair for new trends. In Paris, they came across the mandolin vogue, and at their arrival in Naples, they took the opportunity of searching out Giovanni Battista Gervasio and buying some extremely fresh mandolin music to bring home. Thanks to this, Jean Lefebure could also boast of having in his possession a manuscript dedicated to him by a fashionable Italian musician. The Impact of Travel and Cultural Exchange: Some Concluding Remarks What, then, did Jean Lefebure and Bengt Ferrner bring back to their homeland in terms of musical culture and knowledge of music? What was the outcome of their five-year tour? The most obvious things are the material objects sent home: the large manuscript collection, possibly also musical instruments. Such a manuscript collection was, above all, a collectors’ item for the manor library and a souvenir from the trip. As we have seen, large parts of the collection could also have been used for domestic music making. More important was the knowledge and experience the travellers brought back from the journey. This incorporates many different aspects of music-related knowledge: of repertoires, performance traditions, manners of singing and playing, as well as the different social customs surrounding musical culture at different centres. Not the least important were skills in evaluating, appraising and discussing music and other arts: the internalised ability to appreciate and assess the taste of le beau monde, and thus prove oneself as a galant homme of the world. These skills were relevant both from an individual perspective and for the common good. They were markers of social distinction as well as relevant qualifications for making a career. From the perspective of nation building, it was of importance for the Swedish realm to have officials and entrepreneurs with poise to move in better circles and handle international contacts with ease and elegance.   Tyler and Sparks, The Early Mandolin, pp. 143–167.

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The economic and cultural changes of Enlightenment Europe had levelled society in a way that made this kind of educational tour accessible not only to the uppermost aristocracy. Still, the notion of cultivation behind the grand tour was undoubtedly aristocratic. The ideals that formed the musical taste of travellers such as Ferrner and Lefebure were in this sense cosmopolitan, but cosmopolitan taste regarding music had become standardised, and more or less synonymous with the appreciation of Italian music. The rather uniform, large-scale culture of travel and the industry that developed around it led to a kind of interdependent and to some degree self-fulfilling interaction between foreign travellers and local entrepreneurs. The tourists travelled to encounter the rich cultural life of more sophisticated countries – to side with Voltaire’s perspective – but many of the events were constructed for their sake, to meet their expectations. Nevertheless, the tourism of north-European upper classes undoubtedly led to some sort of European integration, by disseminating these ideals and repertoires to the corners of the continent. To conclude, I would like to present two final observations which exemplify some of the outcomes of travelling and cultural exchange, in regard to both social and geographic spaces. The first concerns Bengt Ferrner’s career after his journey. Soon after his return to Sweden, he was appointed tutor and counsellor to Crown Prince Gustav. As a result, he was ennobled in 1766. The Crown Prince was at that time in his late teens, and Ferrner remained his tutor until Gustav embarked on his own journey to Paris in 1771. It is not far-fetched to assume that Ferrner’s first-hand knowledge of the world of music and theatre on the continent was a subject of conversation between the prince and his adviser – a conversation distinguished precisely by the practices of assessing, comparing and judging, and reflecting the topics, arguments and evaluation of the cosmopolitan beau monde. As Gustav III, the King would later excel as the most devoted promoter of theatre and opera in Swedish history. The second has to do with the subsequent impact of the kind of musical repertoire brought home from journeys by Jean Lefebure and other music lovers of his standing – such as the music collections belonging to the Geer family at the Leufsta library, and to Patrik Alströmer.67 This kind of music became part of the repertoire performed at different events and festivities at foundries and estates around the country, where it was listened to, and perhaps danced to, by local peasants and foundry workers. It was learned, imitated and emulated by local musicians among the country people, so called spelmän, who assimilated both particular pieces and general patterns of style. Thus, a local repertoire was developed that was handed down, in different variants and adaptations, from generation to generation. A little more than a hundred years later, this repertoire   Albert Dunning, ‘Die Geer’schen Musikalien in Leufsta. Musikalische SchwedischNiederländische Beziehungen im 18. Jh.’, Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning 48 (1966), pp. 187–210; Cari Johansson, ‘Studier kring Patrik Alströmers musiksamling’, Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning 43 (1961), pp. 195–207. 67

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was transcribed by Swedish folklorists, published in anthologies and labelled ‘Swedish folk music’. These examples demonstrate the impact of the processes of cultural integration and transmission of knowledge that resulted from the intensified travelling and international exchange in the eighteenth century. In this way cultural material, knowledge and values of a pronounced cosmopolitan character disseminated in the Swedish realm in all the different social strata, from the supreme level of royal authority, to the underprivileged masses of the province.

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LIBERTY Liberty, or freedom, was one of the key concepts of eighteenth-century enlightenment, and it was an important aspect within most fields touched upon by the intellectual discussion of the period. It goes without saying that aspects of liberty were most prominent in relation to political developments, such as in the American and French revolutions, but liberty also had an important position in discussions in moral philosophy as well as in economic thinking. Liberty was linked to ideas of development, and it was assumed that countries with a free constitution were bound to generate progress and happiness. David Hume wrote in his essay Of Civil Liberty ‘that all the arts and sciences arose among free nations […] notwithstanding their ease, opulence, and luxury’. Eighteenth-century Sweden was also a country where liberty was high on the agenda; the period between 1719 and 1772 has, after all, been named ‘The Age of Liberty’. A quick glance at Svenska Akademiens Ordbok reveals that the word Frihet had been in use for a long time and with a variety of meanings, such as freedom for one’s country, political freedom, individual independence, academic freedom, etc. For any discussion about liberty in eighteenth-century Sweden, Peter Forsskål’s Tankar om borgerliga friheten (Thoughts on Civil Liberty), from 1759, is a suitable starting point, as it takes a broad perspective. This somewhat obstinate disciple of Linnaeus deals with liberty in 21 paragraphs; his treatment has been most famous in relation to the Printing Press Act of 1766, but his aim was greater: ‘civil liberty … this means that no one is prevented from doing that which is proper and useful for the community’. In paragraph 19 he deals with one of the founding principles to early-modern urban development: … our closed guilds and the training of apprentices are the great means to sustain idleness, constraint, shortage of people, lechery, poverty and time-wasting.

The aim of the following chapter is to initiate a discussion about the development of liberty in Sweden in the second half of the eighteenth century, by analysing the process which eventually led to the creation of a town based on the principles Forsskål embraced, the making of Eskilstuna Fristad. This analysis links the concept of liberty to the lived enlightenment of state servants and metal-making artisans, as well as Swedish developments to those in Britain.

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Chapter 6

Eskilstuna Fristad: The Beginnings of an Urban Experiment Göran Rydén

An Urban Experiment In April 1771 the Swedish state initiated an ambitious urban experiment by declaring that a ‘Freetown for Workers in iron-, steel- and metal-processing’ was to be established in Eskilstuna, the so-called Fristaden. The Swedish eighteenth century did not see much urban change, so what happened in Eskilstuna could be viewed as a break-up of the early-modern urban landscape. The founding of Fristaden was an important part of the dissolution of Swedish mercantilism, but it must also be analysed in relation to a much treasured idea of mercantilism: how to promote the trades and to enhance export. Sweden was one of Europe’s major iron producers, and from the middle of the seventeenth century it had supplied Britain with increasing volumes of bar iron to be consumed in the expanding manufacturing sector in places like Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle. From the mid eighteenth century, Swedish ironmasters met increased competition from Russian producers, and the Swedish iron industry faced serious problems. One solution to this was to promote a domestic metal trade. What happened in 1771 was thus both mercantilism in action, but also a measure that would erode the very foundation of this economic doctrine. This chapter will not deal with Fristaden as such, as the ambition is to analyse the process of its initiation from the perspective of the man often hailed as its creator, Samuel Schröder; Fristaden was the result of his ‘long and tedious work with the improvement of the conditions for iron, steel, and metal making in Sweden’.1 The starting point is, thus, mercantilism and its dissolution, but there is also a spatial aspect to the argument as Schröder had travelled in Europe and the ideas behind Fristaden are entangled with what he had seen during a stay in Britain. The Royal Proclamation of 1771 began with the motivation behind the new establishment in Eskilstuna, and the main reason was that ‘the improvement of the making of metal wares best could be achieved by giving charters to a free town   Bror-Erik Ohlsson, Eskilstuna Fristad. Fristadsinrättningen i Eskilstuna före sammanslagningen med gamla staden 1771–1833, Eskilstuna 1971, p. 35. See also BrorErik Ohlsson and Ulf Magnusson, Eskilstuna Historia. Städerna och landsbygden från 1500-talet till 1830-talet, Eskilstuna 2001. 1

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for artisans’, and that the best location for such a town would be Eskilstuna. It had a long tradition of metalware production, good communications, and ample supply of charcoal and grain, as well as suitable waterfalls for waterworks. The latter would ‘facilitate the handwork’ with the aid of water-powered machines. This was followed by the main paragraph, stating the rights for ‘all workers in iron, steel and metal making, together with their wives and children, to establish themselves in the charted Fristaden’. These artisans had the liberty to practise their trade in any ways they wanted, purchase their own raw materials and sell their commodities to whom they wanted.2 The essence of Fristaden was thus a Swedish town with artisanal production but without any guild restrictions. One paragraph, however, points in a slightly different direction, towards regulated trade. The supervision of the town was handed to two directors, attached to the Swedish state, in the guise of the Board of Mines and the Board of Commerce. One was in charge of the ‘finer’ metal trades while the other the ‘coarser’ trades. The sixth paragraph of the proclamation stipulated that the workers could ask for, and be given, ‘advice in parts of the work and trade’ from these supervisors, whether it was about the actual work, ways to make it easier, suitable machines or mechanical devices and tools. Fristaden was about liberty, but also about regulations; after all, the town was ‘liberated’ by a royal charter! The background to Fristaden can be found in the mercantilist politics of the early eighteenth century of protectionism, utility and regulation, as well as in the development of the Swedish iron industry. At that time Swedish iron dominated European markets, but voices began to demand tighter control of both production and export; a restricted supply of bar iron would boost prices, but also save the forests for future charcoal making. The debate swung in different directions, but in 1748 a new regulation was enforced which capped production, and iron output stagnated. By then, however, the situation in the European market had changed, and Sweden no longer dominated. The new situation demanded that new markets were found, but there was also a growing interest in the metal trades.3 From the mercantilist perspective an expanding metal trade would be a double remedy for the Swedish iron industry after mid-century. On one hand it meant a new market for the bar iron, but, on the other hand, it also reduced the importation of metal wares, which previously had been seen as a problem. A developing metal trade could also boost exports, making it even better in the views of the economic thinkers of the period.4 Swedish scholars of mercantilism have barely touched   The Royal Proclamation is printed in Ohlsson, Eskilstuna Fristad, pp. 219ff.   Chris Evans and Göran Rydén, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth

2 3

Century, Leiden 2007, Chapter 3; Karl Gustaf Hildebrand, Swedish Iron in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Export Industry Before the Industrialization, Stockholm 1992; Bertil Boëthius and Åke Kromnow, Jernkontorets historia. Del I Grundläggningstiden, Stockholm 1947, p. 429. 4   Evans and Rydén, Baltic Iron, Chapter 3.

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upon the iron industry along these lines, with the textile trades as their most popular object.5 However, the iron industry, the largest export trade, must be added to the discussion, and particularly the development of the metal trades. Their importance was obvious to Swedish politicians, state officials and ironmasters; expanded metalware production would benefit the whole country, if only by lessening the burden of importation. Sweden would become self-subsistent in commodities of crucial importance. Weapons are the best example, but tools, such as files, were also of some significance. The problem was established, but the vital question was how this would be accomplished, and how Sweden should promote its metal trades. The Swedish Urban Experience Eighteenth-century Sweden was hardly an urban society. Jan de Vries gave the percentage of Scandinavia’s population living in towns and cities larger than 10,000 inhabitants as 4.5. These urban dwellers lived in three cities by 1750, and six 50 years later.6 Paul Bairoch came up with a slightly higher percentage, but he also used 5,000 inhabitants as his benchmark; Scandinavian urbanisation amounted to between 6 and 9 per cent around mid-century and towards 10 at its dusk.7 Both these studies could be criticised for equating urbanisation with statistical measures, which might be particularly problematic when dealing with early-modern Europe, and especially Sweden. Sven Lilja has instead calculated population figures for all people living in the Swedish chartered towns, and urban population grew from 178,000 in the 1730s to just below 300,000 at the dawn of the new century. As the total population also grew, the percentage of urban dwellers remained stable at just below 10 per cent.8 Two features of this process must be stressed. For a start, these figures conceal an unbalanced picture, with a few large towns, and only one proper city, together with many urban places that barely could be called towns. Stockholm had a population of about 60,000 inhabitants around mid-century, followed by Göteborg and Karlskrona with around 10,000 inhabitants each. To give just one example from the opposite side of the spectrum, we can look at Eskilstuna.

  One recent book encapsulating both these aspects is Klas Nyberg (ed.), Till salu. Stockholms textile handel och manufaktur 1722–1846, Stockholm 2010. 6   Jan de Vries, European Urbanization 1500–1800, London 1984, pp. 29 and 39. 7   Paul Bairoch, Cities and Economic Development. From the Dawn of History to the Present, Chicago 1988, p. 215. 8   Sven Lilja, Tjuvehål och stolta städer. Urbaniseringens kronologi och geografi i Sverige (med Finland) ca 1570-tal till 1810-tal, Stockholm 2000, pp. 64 and 78. 5

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At mid-century it barely housed 750 people, a figure that increased somewhat towards the end of the century.9 The other feature is that Swedish urbanisation was not a spontaneous development, but rather a political process, in which the state promoted a strict urban hierarchy according to a set of mercantilist principles; a town was a place that had been chartered as a town, and these charters distinguished between the rights to foreign trade or only internal trade.10 For most of the seventeenth century, towns located north of a line between Stockholm and Åbo did not have rights to foreign trade, but from the end of the century foreign trade was gradually liberated. From the 1720s, 23 towns had the rights to both export and import goods.11 If the external structure of Swedish towns was a matter for the state, the same can be said about their internal structures. The town administration was linked to the state, and citizenship of towns (burskap) was given along lines stipulated by national legislation. To get burskap you had to be recognised as either a merchant or an artisan. In both cases you were in the hands of powerful guilds, and had to adapt to their rules and structures of power.12 These links were strengthened at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and mercantilist reasoning lay behind these tighter bonds. The state wanted a unified guild structure, as this would enhance both the level of skills among the artisans, and their numbers. The ambition was that the urban economy would flourish, and such a development would increase state revenues.13 Swedish towns thus had their foundation in a corporate structure with artisan and merchant guilds, but from the seventeenth century a third pillar was added, the chartered and state-supported manufacturers. In order to promote production of certain goods, the state gave special privileges to entrepreneurs to establish production units, mainly in towns. These were given economic and legal support, and their output was protected from foreign competition. The textile trades dominated, but other sectors were also included in this scheme, such as tobacco, porcelain, glass and the metal trades. In 1722 a special court was established for dealing with most aspects of these trades, and a few years later a special fiscal   Lilja, Tjuvehål och stolta städer, see Table 2, pp. 404ff. See also Ann Hörsell, Borgare, smeder och änkor. Ekonomi och befolkning i Eskilstuna gamla stad och Fristaden 1750–1850, Uppsala 1983, pp. 28ff. 10   Birgitta Eriksson, ‘Debatten på 1720-talet om det svenska stadssystemet. Idéer och aktörer’, in Mats Berglund (ed.), Sakta vi gå genom staden. Stadshistoriska studier, Stockholm 2005. 11   Staffan Högberg, Utrikeshandel och sjöfart på 1700-talet. Stapelvaror i svensk export och import 1738–1808, Stockholm 1969, pp. 34ff. 12   Anne-Marie Fällström and Ikka Mäntylä, ’Stadsadministrationen i Sverige-Finland under frihetstiden’, in Birgitta Eriksson, Stadsadministration i Norden på 1700-talet, Oslo 1982, pp. 187ff and 253ff. 13   Lars Edgren, Lärling – gesäll – mästare. Hantverk och hantverkare i Malmö 1750– 1847, Lund 1987, pp. 63ff. 9

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arrangement was established to give the manufacturers financial support. In 1760, about 10,000 people were employed in the sector in Stockholm alone, mainly in the woollen sector, and in other towns like Norrköping and Alingsås a large proportion of the population was attached to the manufacturers. At places like Eskilstuna it was the metal manufacturers that dominated, but Stockholm also had a fairly large contingent of metal-making workshops, employing many skilled artisans.14 Stockholm was the undisputed centre of eighteenth-century Sweden. From a geographical perspective, this was more pronounced than it is today, with Sweden at that time having a squarer shape, with the capital in its middle, but this geography was mirrored in political and economic realities. It was the centre of power, with the seat of both King and Diet, but it also housed the important Boards, with hoards of civil servants implementing the decisions made by the power elite; Stockholm was the origin of the mercantilist decrees, but the capital also benefitted from these measures. Stockholm was the largest port, with an export and import trade that dwarfed all other ports, and it was the main manufacturing centre, surrounded by many small and subordinated towns. One of these satellites, Uppsala with its University and Cathedral, provided the main scientific foundation behind these political and economic measures. The intellectual aspect of Swedish mercantilism was particularly pronounced, and Sweden has been viewed as a dogmatic country, where utilitarianism had become ‘a permeating mentality’; ideas flowed between natural science, the nascent economic thinking and politics, and within this structure urban development was of the utmost importance.15 Swedish economic writings, especially by the Uppsala professor Anders Berch, circulated around ideas of a regulated trade within an urban hierarchy. Berch analysed the economy in three related principles of ‘housekeeping’, with a divine, a common and an individual household. It was the ‘common household’, or the ‘national economy’, that was most dear to Berch, but he began with the ‘divine household’ and how a godly benevolence set boundaries to a country’s housekeeping; man had to make a living out of natural endowments furnished by God. From this Berch adopted the idea that change could only take place if man obtained a better knowledge of this world, or if countries exchanged goods with each other.16 The ‘common household’ encapsulated three parts: policing, economy and taxation. None had priority over the others, but policing, or the ‘administration of orders’, would give ‘force’ to the others as well as ‘paving the way’ for a ‘civil   Per Nyström, Stadsindustriens arbetare före 1800-talet, Stockholm 1955.   Bo Lindberg, ‘Inledning: Politisk kultur och idéer’, in Marie-Christine Skuncke

14 15

and Henrika Tandefelt (eds), Riksdag Kaffehus och Predikstol. Frihetstidens politiska kultur 1766–1772, Stockholm 2003. 16   The remainder of this section is based on Anders Berch, Inledning til Almänna Hushålningen, innefattande Grunden til Politie, Oeconomie och Cameral Wetenskaperne, Stockholm 1747.

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felicity’. Included in this were living arrangements and town planning, with houses ‘invented’ to protect people from harsh climates, although their erection had to be done according to a ‘plan’. The task was to decide the purpose of a town, choosing a ‘comfortable place’, before laying out ‘the parts of which Towns consist, Streets, Squares, Ports, Houses and Buildings’. Berch preferred a plan with ‘straight lines … regular figures … complete symmetry’. In all this, Berch was supported by one of the leading architects, Carl Johan Cronstedts. He also stressed that towns needed a good plan, but also that the houses had to be built in materials that could withstand the Nordic climate.17 Within such a structure, with a regulated economy and chartered and well-built towns, as well as with a pronounced division of labour with craft and trade being the tasks for towns and with agriculture, mining and metal making placed in the countryside, the Swedish economy would work better; concentrating the crafts and trade in the towns would make taxation easier and raw materials cheaper. Close to the heart of mercantilist thinking, Berch thought that a spatial division of labour would enhance foreign trade, and he stated that ‘all towns should be founded upon some particular Trade’. Samuel Schröder Samuel Schröder was born in 1720 in Stockholm, the son of the merchant Henrik Schröder and his wife Juliana Roland. He did not follow in his father’s footsteps, but came to live a life in the service of the iron industry and the metal trades. At 16 he became a student at Uppsala University, taking chemistry and mathematics, but he also studied French, German and English for a ‘language master’. During these years he also took lessons from the assayer at the Board of Mines in the ‘knowing of ore and the art of assaying’. After two years Schröder was back in Stockholm, employed in a junior position at the Board of Mines. He began ‘seriously to take knowledge in the disciplines belonging to the Board’ – chemistry, as well as legal and technological matters. He also followed senior colleagues on tours around Sweden to mines, ironworks or metal-making workshops. He was subsequently promoted within the Board.18 In 1748 Schröder asked for leave. With inherited money he wanted to improve his knowledge about foreign metal making. He left Stockholm and passed through Amsterdam, ‘one of the most curious cities in the whole of Europe’, on his way 17   Grefwe Carl Johan Cronstedts, Tal, om Sten-hus bygnad, Hållit för Swenska Wetenskaps Academien, Då Han sit Præsidentskap Aflade År 1741, Stockholm 1741. 18   For the whole section, see ‘Anteckningar ur framl. Fristads Directeuren, Herr BergsRådet Samuel Schröderstiernas, egenhändigt författade Lefvernes Beskrifning’, Eskilstuna, Kloster och Fors. Handl. Ang. kyrka m.m. 1809–1820, bundle 353, Uppsala Landsarkiv. See also Jörgen Langhof, ‘Schröderstierna, Samuel’, Svenskt Bibliografiskt Lexikon, Band 31, 2002-2002.

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to England. He stayed for a while in London before departing on a tour of the whole country. In the following spring he spent weeks in and around Birmingham, visiting workshops of all kinds. In the autumn he left Britain for France and Germany, before returning to Stockholm. He came back during the Diet of 1751–52 and soon got the opportunity to inform the members of the Secret Committee of what he had observed during his journey, as well as to show them the collections of ‘Models, Tools, Drawings and Work Processes, related to the Iron, Steel and Metal processing’. His diary was also inspected. It was assumed that Schröder would resume his career at the Board of Mines, but for about two years he was busy in promoting himself as an expert in foreign metal making. In 1753 he was appointed to a newly founded post, Directeur for the metal trades at the Board of Commerce, as a kind of national supervisor, as well as to be of assistance whenever a works-owner so wanted. He should travel around the country, visiting workshops and writing reports. Schröder fulfilled this task for 18 years, until 1771, when he became Directeur for Fristaden in Eskilstuna. By that time he had been ennobled, under the name of Schröderstierna. Birmingham and the British Urban Experience Like most Swedish travellers to Britain, Schröder began his stay in London. The capital was both a spatial starting point and an analytical beginning. He began his exploration of London by climbing to the top of St Paul’s Cathedral, and from this elevated spot he got what he called ‘A General Idea of London’, including a spatial view but also a beginning to its economic structure. The borders of the capital were blurred, and outside these the urban landscape continued. ‘The country around London,’ stated Schröder, ‘is so built by small towns, villages and summerhouses, that it looks like a continuous city.’ He could have added that the rest of England was also attached to its capital, at least in an economic sense. London never escaped the analysis of eighteenth-century travellers to Britain, even after they had left the capital.19 Schröder continued to Birmingham, the centre for metal making. A couple of years later he was followed there by Reinhold Angerstein, a fellow traveller. For them both this was their first stop in industrial Britain, where they were to spend

19   This section is based on ‘Dagbok rörande Handel, Näringar och Manufacturer m.m. Uti Danmark, Holland, England, Frankrike och Tyskland. Under verkstälde resor, åren 1748–1751 förd af Samuel Schröder’, Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, X:303, Vol. I and II, and R R Angerstein’s Illustrated Travel Diary, 1753–1755. Industry in England and Wales from a Swedish Perspective, London 2001. See also Göran Rydén, ‘Viewing and Walking. Swedish Visitors to Eighteenth-Century London’, Journal of Urban History, Vol. 39 (2), 2013.

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much time in observing, describing and trying to understand. Schröder gave the following description: Birmingham is only called a Town or large Village […] in Warwickshire. Is about one mile long and somewhat less in width. It lies on a hill. The country around is beautiful […] Birmingham is build by stone-houses, as in other towns and villages in England. One part of it is fairly well and regulated build. It has two main churches, called the old and the new, of which the latter is pretty good-looking and build in modern architecture … the place shall include 40 to 50000 people. The main traffic and trades of this place is manufacturing of iron, steel and other metals, in particularly manufactures for assorted metal buckles and buttons. Glass-buttons of all sorts. Snuff-boxes painted and lacquered on tin-plates. […] Tea plates, tea-boxes etc. of tin-plates lacquered with black, gold and coloured, all kinds of guns, coarser and finer muskets, pistols, rapiers and sable-blades.

When Schröder left London he left the public sphere of the middling sort behind him, and entered the world of production and work. ‘In Birmingham there are no, or few, people of rank, and all are artisans or shop-keepers.’ He had left the fashionable coffee houses of the capital for the rowdy inns of an industrial town. ‘The inhabitants amuse themselves a lot at inns and clubs, where evenings are passed with political discussions and drinking of beer, port and rum punch. Some days one comes together to dance’. Angerstein would have concurred. When he arrived the people were on their feet dancing and drinking. Schröder’s description of Birmingham is typical of his writings on the English urban landscape. It followed a pattern he also used for Leeds, Sheffield or Bristol. The starting point is a short description of the geographical position, and we are informed about its size and the physical structure with houses, streets and churches. He then describes the economy and industrial activities, and sometimes discusses the social life of the inhabitants. Angerstein viewed industrial towns from a similar angle. He remarked of Birmingham that it ‘is the Head for all Manufacturing Towns in iron, steel and brass, as well as all kinds of fine makings’, meaning that it was the main economic centre of the region. He, like Schröder, visited most towns in the area, and observed the spatial division of labour between them. Willenhall was known for their locks, Wolverhampton ‘is especially recognised for manufacturing finer iron buckles, chandeliers, corkscrews and other works of its kind’, Walsall made goods related to horses and riding, while Dudley and Stourbridge were known for their nailing. Birmingham was the marketing and financial centre for most of these trades, but also a production centre in its own right. The gun trade had its centre in the town, but it was dependent upon parts made elsewhere, such as locks from Willenhall and barrels from Aston. The Birmingham ‘Gun-smith [had] to make the stock, assemble and finish the lot’. Wednesbury was also attached, as the supplier of coal to all the forges and workshops: ‘Daily arrive and consume 50 to 60 wagons of

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pit-coal, which are drawn by 5, 6 to 7 horses one before the other. Every wagon contains 50 to 60 hundred-weights.’ It was an intricate urban landscape that was described by the Swedish travellers. London was the real ‘Head’ of the country, but subordinated to that were the regional centres where much industrial production took place; there was Birmingham with its metal making, Newcastle with coal mining, Leeds with woollen manufacturing, Sheffield with its steel making, and many more. Attached to this system, or perhaps circumscribing it, was the global economy, also with London as the main centre, but with Bristol and Liverpool as other important nodes. Birmingham was a town full of working people. In Schröder’s diary there were between 40,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. Recent studies give half that size as a fair estimate,20 but the Swede might have included other towns or villages in his estimate. Schröder also indicated that the regional metropolis was without people of rank, but this also was an exaggeration, as he socialised with wealthy merchants living in the Old Square or around the new St Philips church. However, Birmingham was a town full of artisans, working in the maze of workshops belonging to the metal trades. Schröder, as Angerstein, was fully aware of the spatial divisions between different groups in the region. The latter showed this in a description of Wolverhampton, which consisted of a fair number of well-built brick houses. On each side [of the town], where the artisans live, are likewise a multitude of wretched hovels, which clearly reveal, that the workers also at this place have the bones, when the Merchant, as often happens, takes the meat for himself.

These industrial towns were not empty of ‘people of rank’, but while in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the other places it was the workshops and the making of metal wares that was of prime interest to Schröder, and his diary is a proof of the many forges and workshops he visited. It is possible to read his text as a kind of manual of how to make metal commodities. He spent a lot of time with Thomas Hadely, the gun maker, and in his diary we can follow the many steps of making a gun, but other trades also appear frequently. Bearing these descriptions of different trades in mind, there was one aspect of these workshops that really caught Schröder’s attention, and a few years later also struck Angerstein: the division of labour. The latter described a buckle being made in Wolverhampton: I saw that some were occupied in forging the hook and the spike, others in filing them and others in assembling the ring. The buckle itself had its own workman, after which another files and polish. All of these special tasks have their own way of being carried out.

  de Vries, European Urbanization, p. 270.

20

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Schröder elaborated on this, in a section on the ‘general remarks’ about Birmingham manufacturers; the metal trades are organised so that ‘a master, or the manufacturer, have a good deal of lesser masters below himself, who have their particular tasks to do. These have in turn day-labourers or apprentices working for them.’ It was only the ‘head-master’ who fully understood all the parts of the trade, and ‘his particular task is to walk around as an inspector in all the different workshops and to keep an eye on the workers, as well as to examine the goods when it passes from one worker to the next’. He should also keep an account ‘over his people’ and pay them. The lesser masters and their workers, on the other hand, ‘never have the opportunity to learn any craft in its full extent, but only a small part thereof, such as hammering, filing, polishing, stamping, moulding, etc.’ The outcome of such an organisation was, according to Schröder, ‘that work was done more properly and faster’ than when work was undertaken in a workshop where ‘a man has to do many things of variant properties’. An artisan working in a workshop where division of labour is practised can ‘easier improve his dexterity than if he had many different tasks and had to leave the one for starting the other’. Division of labour was the foundation for metal making in the Birmingham region, but it was combined with a fully developed market economy and economic liberty. Schröder stated that: Birmingham is an open place without any customs or any borough administrators. Here have artisans the freedom to settle down as many as would want and from that make a living, within any craft. No guild or society is here between the artisans, instead full freedom.

The many small and independent workshops, involved in ‘their particular tasks’, were attached to each other by the market mechanism, and in order to stay in business had to make goods of high quality, but also had to sell them at the lowest price. There was a constant war going on between the artisans and they ‘compete with each other in the goodness of their commodities, and undersell each other in the price in order to have a market’. Schröder observed an adaptable production landscape of many small and independent masters with their own workshop, linked to each other through a system of flexible subcontracting where changing ties between different masters were settled on the market. The downside to this structure was that many masters and workshops competed with each other. There were not as many merchants from the Old Square, and the balance of power was clear. According to Schröder, five or six merchants controlled the market, something that worked to the disadvantageous of the artisans; they were ‘underselling each other […] which is why the merchants profit, while the artisans hurt each other’. Birmingham around the middle of the eighteenth century was something of ‘a workshop of the world’. It was a smoke-filled place with forges and workshops using coal to melt iron, brass or copper, and wagons with coal arrived from Wednesbury. Other wagons, filled with goods from the smaller towns in the vicinity, also arrived in Birmingham for assembly into commodities, such as guns

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and toy wares, or to be transported further away. Birmingham was part of a wider network of trading links. Its commodities belonged to the nation, but also to the Atlantic world that formed the main part of the British Empire. But Birmingham was not only a production site; it was also a gigantic market, where artisans competed with each other for the opportunity to sell goods to merchants, who then passed them on to the wider arena. Schröder was aware of this, as he was of the consequences this system had for the artisans: they ‘undersold’ each other, and they lived in wretched hovels! The Directeur for the Swedish Metal Trades Schröder noted in his biography, with some contentedness, that he was invited to tell the Secret Committee during the Diet of 1751–52 about his journey around Europe, as well as to show the collections of models, drawings and tools that he had brought back with him. However, a closer analysis of the sources reveals a slightly different story, and it seems that Schröder from the moment he returned to Stockholm was busy trying to promote himself as an expert on foreign metal making; it was he himself who initiated the visit to the Secret Committee. In a lost memorandum, Schröder argued that his diary and collections were proofs enough that he ought to be of some use to his country, as well as worth some kind of reward. The matter generated some discussions in the Committee, and Schröder’s competence was actually questioned; why, it was asked, did he turn to the state for a reward instead of setting up a new factory himself, based on his foreign experience? A related problem, also raised, questioned the relationship between drawings, models and dexterity, and it was stated that ‘his whole collection was a curiosity, which could well be used by someone that understand the actual way of work’. In Schröder’s case it was only his inherited wealth that had allowed him to travel around Europe and ‘procure models and drawings’, but he had no idea of how to produce metal wares.21 An evaluation of Schröder’s journey to Britain points towards a rather complex experience. His diary begins with a structural image of the Birmingham region, and the spatial division of labour. This led him to an analysis of the organisation of production in the workshops, embedded in a world of commercialisation and freedom of trade; the division of labour in the workshops was obvious. However, at the Secret Committee other aspects had greater importance, as he wanted to promote himself as an expert, and collections of models and drawings were proofs of his capabilities. Another important difference is that the diary was written within the apodemic tradition, with ‘objective’, clear and matter-of-fact descriptions of what he observed; he seldom gave value statements or noted that some things 21   ‘Anteckningar ur framl. Fristads Directeuren’ (see footnote 18), Frihetstidens Utskottshandlingar, Riksdagen 1751–52, Sekreta utskottet, Vol. R 2956 and 2963, Riksarkivet Stockholm.

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were better than others. After his return the voice altered, and he dealt with his experience in a different fashion, talking about ‘corrections for our metal trades’. The question for the rest of this chapter is what Schröder meant by ‘corrections’ and how that was related to what he had seen in Birmingham. Schröder was doubted at the Secret Committee, but his self-promotion campaign resulted in a new post being invented for him, as he, in 1753, became Directeur for the finer metal trades. (Angerstein became Directeur for the coarser metal trades.) Schröder handed in reports to the Board of Commerce, but he also followed his old habit of writing down his business and thoughts in a diary. The following is mainly based on the diary he kept from 1753 to 1771.22 It is not clear what his instructions for his new employment implied, but the pages of his diary give an indication of how he interpreted his new position. During the first eighteen months as Directeur he travelled around Sweden to visit workshops, manufactures and ironworks, to get an overall picture of the Swedish metal trades, including guilds-based production in the towns and the chartered manufacturers scattered around the country. In August 1754, for instance, he left Stockholm for a tour westwards. He began by visiting Wedewåg, one of the largest metal manufacturers. He viewed its workshops, and was especially interested in their production of files. He passed Örebro with its gun making, and travelled further west to Alingsås. This was a chartered woollen manufacturer, owned by Jonas Ahlström, but Schröder also observed the making of equipment and machines for the textile trade, made from iron and steel. In the adjacent region the metal trades flourished in the countryside; knives were made, along with scissors, scythes, needles, awls and mouth harps. He saw knives being forged in Göteborg, but apart from that Sweden’s second largest town had nothing of interest for the Directeur. Schröder returned to Stockholm in October, but on the way back he paid a visit to two places he had seen before, Carl Gustafs Stad and Tunafors bruk. These were large and important metal manufacturers, and they were both situated in the immediate vicinity of Eskilstuna. Schröder was to go there many times during his 18-year reign as Directeur. From an earlier visit we know that the first place contained many different forges and workshops, as well as steel furnaces. They also possessed waterworks for furnishing the artisans with working materials as well as polishing the finished goods. The making of wares took place in a large knife workshop, and the ‘forging factory’ for the making of hinges, fittings for coffins and windows, locks, etc. Tunafors bruk was almost as large, but their output was slightly different, with a concentration on commodities used in the household, such as cutlery, scissors and clasp knives.

22   Dagbok rörande Directeurs-Sysslan öfver Jern- Stål- och Metall- Fabrikerne i Riket af S Schröder. Åren 1753–1771, Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, X. 283 1–3. The following is based on an analysis of this diary apart from when noted.

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Figure 6.1 The metal-ware forge at Gustafsfors, 1758

Source: Ink drawing by Reinhold Angerstein, Jernkontorets bruksbildsamling, Stockholm.

Schröder assessed the Swedish metal trades during 1754, before he began his mission of ‘correcting’ what he saw as flaws and wrongdoings, and working on improvements. The problems he identified can loosely be categorised into four different groups. For a start it was obvious that the Swedish metal trades would never attain an acceptable level if the raw materials or equipment did not improve. Throughout the 1750s he returned to this topic many times, and the problems dealt with spanned from bad grinding stones to fuel and emery. Often the solution was to try to import from Britain, but when it came to the biggest problem, that of steel quality, that was hardly a solution. During a visit to the file maker Roth in Stockholm he promised to try to supply him with blister steel made from Leufsta iron, but that proved easier said than done as most of these brands of iron were exported to Britain where it was converted to the best steel one could buy. However, this steel was not for sale in Sweden. Another problem where Britain was seen as a solution was the quality of the workers. Clearly many of the Swedish artisans, masters as well as apprentices, did not keep up with the standards required by a developing trade. One solution to this lack of quality was practised at Husum. At its pin works the owner employed 37 apprentices between 8 and 18 years of age, and the ambition was to ‘move

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the quickest and most skilled of these to the knife factory’. At Tunafors they also received eight boys from the Stockholm orphanage, for training into artisans. A different solution was to attract foreign workers. Schröder sometimes asked Angerstein, still abroad, to find a skilled grinder, a file maker, or knife smiths. In 1755 he noted that two knife smiths, Roberts and Seathley, had arrived at Tunafors and been given a workshop each. The purpose of this labour migration was not only that they should make commodities, but also ‘that they might teach their skills at these places as well as to train them [Swedish artisans] in a proper working order’. ‘A proper working order’ are words often appearing in Schröder’s diary during these years, and he wanted the British workers to inform Swedish works owners of the proper way to organise production in their workshops, as well as teaching the workers. This was Schröder’s main theme in his mission of improving the Swedish metal trades, and he was often annoyed that many workshops were not organised according to a proper plan. In 1755 he went to Stjernsund, founded by Christopher Polhem, and he noted that they had problems; it was run by two inspectors, which created ‘a disorderly housekeeping and this caused problems for the organisation of the workshop’s proper working order’. A similar comment was given at Wira bruk the year before. Its production of blades had deteriorated because of a bad ratio between masters and apprentices; there were too many of the former. So what did Schröder mean by a ‘proper working order’? At Wedewåg he wrote that a good ‘working order is hand in hand’, and from Norrtälje gun factory he noted that ‘a new working order [should] make work go quickly through many hands, and the necessary use of tools and machines for easing the work’. At Tunafors he wanted the workshops to be ‘equipped with more hands, so that work may be good as well as fast and quick’, and later noted that this place had introduced ‘Satzwerk, which is that each work piece is made by many workers, who have been busy in their particular bits and skills’. The last aspect of improving the Swedish metal trades during these years was related to marketing. Schröder identified the market as a crucial problem in the attempts to enhance metal making. In 1756 he reported that a young man, Magnus Wahlbom, had hired a shop at a good address in Stockholm, and was to sell metal wares. He had a good stock in hand, from important producers, and it was assumed that he would get goods from others shortly. This was good news indeed, according to Schröder, as the ‘factory owners’ had problems with disposing of their output. There was the problem of credit, and that of being paid at all, but there was also the matter of curious customers wandering around in the workshops, and ‘the waste of time’ for the producers; Schröder implied a rational division of labour between the makers and sellers, and he thought highly of Wahlbom: ‘He has knowledge enough to take care of these commodities, as well as being good to socialise with people.’ The scheme, however, came to nothing as a couple of months later Wahlbom was dead. Schröder was also busy in trying to get hold of metal wares from foreign countries, so that producers could see these and copy them for later exportation. In 1756 he had acquired iron wares from Portugal,

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and a couple of years into the 1760s he was busy trying to make manufacturers produce goods for the Dutch market. In January 1760 Schröder handed in a report to the Board about the preceding five years, and he concluded that Swedish metal making had seen its best time ever; no longer was it necessary to import goods, but instead domestic ‘demand [could] be supplied from home produce’.23 Before proceeding with an analysis of this important text it is useful to make an appraisal of Schröder’s ideas in the 1750s about the ‘corrections’ for the Swedish metal trades. A few things stand out. For a start, the journey to Britain was a continuous point of reference, and what he had seen in and around Birmingham was something to strive for. Swedish development was always compared with the situation in Britain; British artisans were more skilled, their raw materials were better and they used ‘the proper working order’ in their workshops. Another striking feature is the mercantilist frame in which everything is analysed. Schröder’s proof of a successful development was that import of metal wares had fallen, and been replaced by ‘home produce’. The idea was also that skilled foreigners were to teach Swedish artisans to work better, which would lessen importation even further. Schröder also wanted to introduce division of labour in the workshops, but this advice was given to the works owners who had to enforce that on their workers. He had seen what he thought was the correct way of managing the metal trades in Birmingham, and he wanted to introduce that into Swedish workshops, but this was to be done in a top-down, mercantilist fashion. There was nothing in his diary during these years about division of labour within a commercialised economy and with free trade. In 1760 that was about to change! In his report from 1760, Schröder gave his views on the success of the trade. The main reasons were the good Constitution, ‘powerful encouragements’ from the state and ‘the industry and toil’ of the works owners. The latter was essential, ‘but’ asked Schröder, ‘if these works sometimes would end up with new owners, who did not have the same inclinations’, what would then happen? He emphasised the strength of tradition, which went hand in hand with knowledge, but indicated that this was not always the case with new owners. They might be wealthy, but seldom possessed ‘enough knowledge about these things […] being less able to stick their hand into the work or improve what is wrong’. To this he added that the owners not only owned the works but also the workers, ‘always in debts’, and new owners could therefore hardly rely on the diligence of their workers. When ‘industry and competition among the workers are taken away, when they could not see themselves as free’, they would not do a proper job. The Swedish metal trades had improved, but there was a threat to its continuing development. What he proposed in 1760 was an industrial development along the lines of free trade; ‘where one worker shall give the next his hand, so that they together can be a society without which the individuals cannot exist.’ In his diary he also noted 23   Printed as Part II of Samuel Schröderstierna, Berättelser över de finare järn- stål och metallfabrikerna i Sverige åren 1754–1759, I, II, Stockholm 1925.

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that a development towards such a structure would be to move towards ‘a natural condition and order’. His conclusion was that after comparing the foundations I have found at iron, steel and metal factories in other countries, which during a short time have grown and formed populous towns, have I believed that a similar factory establishment, although in proportion here is less people than elsewhere, however, could with the same success and future be founded. That is if first a suitable place could be found, with favourable natural advantages and location, as well as already possess or could be equipped with necessary water-works, and then by a general charter be given liberty for each and all natives and foreigners, who in iron, steel and metal want to work, to settle down and build and live. These artisans shall on their own account […] practice its trade and craft as best as they could, under the advantage of the statutes of the Royal Privileges of the Manufacturers.24

Schröder wrote that he did not think it would be appropriate to propose a particular spot for this new ‘factory place’, before he had discussed the matter with his superiors, but everyone who read his report would have had no doubts that he had Eskilstuna in mind, amalgamated with Carl Gustafs Stad and Tunafors bruk. This became evident at the Diet of 1760–1762, where Schröder presented a proposal with Eskilstuna as a ‘free factory town’ for the metal trades; the place had all the advantages, with a long tradition and the necessary waterworks. Members of a sub-committee to the Diet inspected the place in May 1761, and they favoured the scheme, but there was one obstacle as no funds were available to purchase the two works.25 It is not clear why Schröder changed direction ahead of the Diet in 1760, and why he abandoned one of the sacred ideas of mercantilism; why replace state-enforced division of labour, and the regulated economy, for one where a commercialised economy based on free trade would create ‘a society’ in which ‘one worker would give the next his hand’? The sources cannot help us with this, but an analysis of the diary notes from the 1760s gives us some insights. In 1762, Schröder again visited Carl Gustafs Stad and Tunafors bruk. He found them ‘in the same conditions as before’, and a year later they had actually expanded and employed more workers than before. Three years later the optimism had been replaced by a gloomier view; at the former place the number of employees was the same, but they produced for the warehouse. At Tunafors they had already reduced the workforce. After another two years Schröder inspected the expanding stock at both places: ‘The reason behind this large store of finished manufactured goods

24   Schröderstierna, Berättelser, II, p. 87. I have not translated this section word for word, due to the very complicated sentence structure. 25   Ohlsson, Eskilstuna Fristad, pp. 17–24; Bertil Boëthius and Åke Kromnow, Jernkontorets historia. Del II:1 L’ancien régime, Stockholm 1968, pp. 375ff.

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was due to the lack of demand during the latest of times, which in turn is affected by the changes in the amount of money.’ The 1760s was a tough decade for the Swedish economy, and not least for factory owners and ironmasters. Iron prices fell dramatically after 1764, before rising again at an even steeper pace, and the metal trades were affected by the turmoil. The reason for this was dramatic changes in the exchange rate and the supply of money, which in turn was an effect of political ruptures in the aftermaths of the Seven Year War.26 In 1767 it got so dramatic that it prompted Schröder to write a section in his diary entitled ‘a Politico – Oeconomical Remark’. This is a remarkable text, as Schröder lifted himself from the practicalities of the trade to deal with the economy in more abstract terms. It begins with a short retrospective treatment of the Swedish manufacturing system, dealing with both metals and textiles, including a discussion of state activities in the financial sphere, and the ‘encouragements’ to factory owners. The problems faced in the 1760s had their origin in the last years of the preceding decade, during the war. The Swedish Crown had ‘easy access to Money’, which was spent on the manufacturers; ‘[t] rade and shipping expanded’, as did the rest of the economy, and ‘exuberance and abundance’ reigned. Then the bubble burst, and economic crisis took its toll on the Swedish economy; the exchange rate rose, with food prices and wages following. However, the ‘encouragement’ for the manufacturer remained, and the stock of unsold commodities filled the warehouses; no one had the means to purchase cloth or metal wares. The urban ‘crafts and the internal trade suffered during these difficult conditions, and so did iron making and the factories’. Schröder’s description of the situation was one of high wages and expensive raw materials, together with low prices for Swedish-made goods. The exchange rate also made it easier for imported commodities of low quality to expand on the Swedish market. The outcome of this would be a closure of Swedish manufacturers and unemployment; skilled artisans had to ‘abandon the fatherland and apply for work in foreign countries … in particularly in Russia’. We do not have to agree with Schröder’s analysis of the 1760s, or his treatment of the earlier development of the Swedish manufacturing system, but his ‘Remark’ from 1767 indicates a new and different way of thinking compared to ideas he had approved of in the previous decade. Gone were ideas of a state-enforced division of labour, and how such a policy would expand trade and generate economic progress. What he described was a view of the economy where change in one aspect would act upon the rest in a way that no one could anticipate. If Schröder in 1760 mentioned three reasons for the success of the trade in the 1750s, the good constitutions, state support and the ‘industry’ of the owners, he began to question these soon after. For a start he seems to have doubted the workings of a regulated economy by pointing towards competition between workers as the main spring 26   Eli F. Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia från Gustav Vasa. Andra delen. Det moderna Sveriges grundläggning, Stockholm 1949, Chapter 11.

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behind what he called ‘a natural condition and order’, and his ‘Remark’ can be read as a pledge for the abandonment of state ‘encouragements’. In 1763 he got involved in another matter where mercantilist ideas and liberated trade clashed. An essential aspect of the former was the recruitment of overseas artisans; skilled foreigners should teach Swedish artisans dexterity and ‘a proper working order’, and Schröder had been busy making sure that foreign artisans were deployed in a fruitful way. In the autumn of 1763 he was informed that an employee at the Board of Commerce, Johan Westerman (ennobled as Liljencrantz, and later Gustav III’s leading counsellor), was trying to attract Matthew Boulton, along with a group of artisans, to migrate to Sweden.27 Boulton might be viewed from a similar perspective as the English artisans already in Sweden, but he was of a different league. In 1763 he had not, for sure, attained the position he was to get a decade later, but he nonetheless personified another aspect of British industrial accomplishment. In the early years of the 1760s he was busy establishing himself as one of the major players in the Birmingham area by breaking ‘with the old practice of “putting-out” work’, the combination of division of labour and a commercialised economy so dominant when Schröder had visited the region. Boulton’s plan was to establish factory production, and if that could not be done in Birmingham, Sweden might be an alternative.28 In October 1763, Schröder was on his way to Eskilstuna. His purpose was to probe the possibility of Boulton settling there. Westerman had opted for Norrköping, but Schröder argued for a town with a longer tradition in the metal trades. However, his argument was slightly more complicated, as he stated that Boulton, ‘should himself, choose the place for his establishment’. He was, however, most likely to pick Eskilstuna, especially if that place was chartered as a Fristad. Schröder held a meeting with two members of the Royal Council, and reiterated his views that in order to promote the Swedish metal trades it was essential to create a place where Swedish and foreign artisans could settle and go about their business without anyone interfering with them. This time his argument had an additional angle: if Sweden wanted to attract people like Matthew Boulton to build factories, they had to have opportunities to settle at places where no one impeded their trade. In the end, as we know, Matthew Boulton never left Birmingham. A decade after his proposed move to Sweden he joined forces with James Watt, and together they came to make an important impact in the developments towards the modern industrial society; Birmingham became the ‘workshop of the world’ and one of the first industrial towns. That did not happen to Eskilstuna, either before 27   British research has been aware of this attempt, but Swedish scholars have not mentioned this before. See T.S. Ashton, Iron and Steel in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester 1924, pp. 200ff; A.E. Musson and E. Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester 1969, pp. 224ff; J.R. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer. Britain, France in the Eighteenth Century, Aldershot 1998, pp. 498ff. 28   For Boulton’s early development, see Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men. The Friends who Made the Future, London 2002, pp. 57–69. The quotation is from p. 64.

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or after 1771, even if it remained an important place for the Swedish metal trades, but the episode of a potential migration of Boulton showed that even if Schröder’s ideas during these years might have a beginning in mercantilist arguments, they nevertheless ended with him promoting a ‘free town for artisans’ within the metal trades.29 Towards 1771, and After One way of characterising the achievements of Schröder in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, from his visit to Birmingham in the late 1740s to the establishment of Fristaden in Eskilstuna in 1771, would be to see it as an act of translation. Swedish scholars have viewed it in such terms, and Britons like John Harris have echoed a similar standpoint;30 Schröder went to Britain and saw Birmingham before going back to his native Sweden to establish its Swedish equivalent. Eskilstuna has sometimes gone under the name of the ‘Birmingham of Sweden’. The aim of this chapter has been to show that such a description is far too simple, and even if the metaphor of translation is kept we must view it as a long sequence of translations, plural. A first step in such a process has to be to take into account that Schröder came from a different tradition compared to the one he witnessed in Britain. I have argued elsewhere that London was an alien urban world to him, but so was Birmingham.31 He viewed a commercial world with an unregulated economy, but he understood it from a mercantilist and apodemic position. A second point of ‘translation’ must question what it was he saw in this ‘workshop of the world’; was it liberty and the commercial economy, the division of labour, the skilled artisans or the very different urban landscape that made the strongest impression on the Swedish traveller? A last point that must be brought into the analysis is what happened in Sweden during the two decades preceding 1771, and how that gradually changed Schröder’s views. The striking feature of Schröder’s diary from his English journey is the ‘objective’ description of what he saw. He was the apodemic traveller, who from a mercantilist standpoint viewed and described a different society. Never did he give any verdict about what he saw, whether it was better or worse than in his Swedish fatherland; Britain was, plainly, different from Sweden. It is, as some scholars have done, easy to analyse the discussions in his diary about division of labour and liberty as something he favoured, but he never wrote that. However, one could also make a point about him stressing the negative sides of   There are a few traces in the Boulton Archive of the attempts to lure him to Sweden, but they indicate a one-way communication; Westerman wrote letters to Boulton, or had Swedes in Britain do that job for him, but the Birmingham man did not reply. See Birmingham City Archives, Matthew Boulton Papers, MS 3782/12/23/28, 31 and 52. 30   Harris, Industrial Espionage, pp. 514f. 31   Rydén, ‘Viewing and Walking’. 29

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the commercial economy, as he did when describing the industrial towns, but he never took a stand on this matter either. After he had returned to Sweden, in 1753, his voice changed and he began to be involved in the ‘corrections’ of the Swedish metal trades, but we are still partly in the dark as to what he meant by that. It is obvious that he, in his first years as Directeur for the metal trades, remained within the world of mercantilism when he argued for better raw materials, more skilled workers and a ‘proper working order’. All this was to be had from Britain, but it had to be imposed by the combined efforts of him, as a state representative, and the works owners; he attempted to implement a ‘British system’ from above, and without the consent of the artisans. This was mercantilism in practice, with the state enforcing a correct and regulated economy. Around 1760, Schröder began to think differently, and distanced himself from the mercantilist doctrines. In 1763 he talked about ‘a natural condition and order’, meaning an organisation of the metal trades along the lines of a commercial and unregulated economy; free artisans ‘shall give the next his hand, so that they together can be a society’. By then, Schröder might have abandoned the implementation of ‘a proper working order’, or did he imply that this would be the logical outcome of artisans taking each other’s hands? It is not clear what he meant by the ‘natural condition’ around the mid 1760s, whether the liberated trade would create a fruitful division of labour or not, but it is obvious that the depressed state of the trade affected his views about a state-supported manufacturing system. This had led to manufacturers producing for the warehouses, and the stockpiling affected the prices for the goods the artisans had made. * * * Fristaden was the first Swedish ‘experiment’ with an unregulated urban economy, when it was launched in 1771 by a Royal Charter. It remained as an urban ‘exception’ until 1832, when it was united with Eskilstuna ‘old town’ as one urban unit.32 Fairly soon, however, it was not the sole ‘exception’, as Marstrand was created as a ‘porto franco’ in 1775,33 and Tammefors followed suit in 1779 when it also became a free town. Five years later, as we shall see in Chapter 12, Gustavia at Saint Barthélemy became another member of this club of towns with an urban development that differed from the traditional Swedish urban politics. It is an undeniable fact that Samuel Schröder played an important role in this development, and particularly in the case discussed here. But he was not alone and it is even probable that he belonged to a group of civil servants employed at the Boards in Stockholm who acted for a gradual development towards more liberty in the Swedish economy. Another of these men was Johan Westerman, or Liljencrantz, who wanted to lure Matthew Boulton to Sweden as well as being 32   For Eskilstuna in the nineteenth century, see Lars Magnusson, Den bråkiga kulturen. Förläggare och smideshantverkare i Eskilstuna 1800–1850, Vänersborg 1988. 33   Heckscher, Sveriges ekonomiska historia, pp. 666f.

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active in relation to both Marstrand and Gustavia. In a memorandum to the Diet in 1765–66 he stressed that if Sweden wanted to emulate England ‘in the perfection of labour and light prices’ it was essential to introduce ‘absolute liberty’ so that ‘factories could be established’ and ‘assembled at one place’.34

Figure 6.2 Eskilstuna ‘Fristad’, in 1771

Note especially, the regulated structure of the urban environment, with its straight streets and quarters. Source: City plan, by Gothard Wahlström, Eskilstuna stadsarkiv, Stadsingenjörskontorets arkiv, 19A.

34   Handels Intend: Westermans Underd: Riksdags Berättelse. År 1765, Frihetstidens Utskottshandlingar. Riksdagen 1765–66, Vol. 3338, Riksarkivet, Stockholm.

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In the 1760s Schröder was thus going against the doctrines of Swedish mercantilism. He abandoned Anders Berch’s views of a regulated urban economy as a means to economic development; the road to ‘a natural condition and order’ should not be implemented from above. This did not mean that he broke with Berch on all accounts. It is clear that Schröder, as Directeur to Fristaden, after 1771, still subscribed to Berch’s views of a perfect plan for a town; with ‘straight lines … regular figures … complete symmetry’ – see Figure  6.2. It is difficult to find a town more regular than the one Schröder was active in – it had straight streets, regulated squares and even symmetrically built houses – and the free artisans, thus, remained to some extent trapped in regulated structures imposed on them from above.35

35   Sam. Schröderstiernas papper, Eskilstuna stadsarkiv. See also Ohlsson and Magnusson, Eskilstuna Historia, pp. 85–111.

IMAGE The eighteenth-century consumption of printed images can be described as a phenomenon that crossed cosmopolitanism, social class formation, and the Enlightenment discourse on body and mind. Prints gained more and more cultural significance in an expanding international market. They were manufactured and shipped all across Europe and with them travelled culture as embodied in pictorially codified discourses and genres. The commercially circulated printed image was taken up in the social space inhabited by the ‘middling sort’ in urban European centres, modelling their particular distinction and lifestyle within the acknowledged codes of modernity. One particularly important aspect of the latter is the eighteenth-century theory of knowledge, with its emphasis on the workings of the senses. This discursive stance underlies the notion of prints as bearers of knowledge and as evokers of ‘pleasures’ and ‘conveniences’. The printed image is, in the context of the theory of body and mind, closely tied to the new value put on sense perception in general and the function of prints as tools of knowledge and pleasure in particular. This chapter will explore the cultural web of market practices, social space and discursive turns, approached as regularities mixed up in the construction of attraction surrounding the printed image. Although the chapter discusses prints distributed in the Swedish capital, it is essential to note that this market was international and that the framing themes relate to objects and currents that align Stockholm with other European cities: printed media, pictorial/print genres, decoration, knowledge, urbanity, luxury, convenience, ‘gallantry’.

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Chapter 7

Prints and Attraction in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm Sonya Petersson

Framing the Study The international market for prints during the second half of the eighteenth century provided a geographically dispersed network. Dealers, engravers/ entrepreneurs, publishers and printers were to an unprecedented degree producing and distributing prints in series, collections, volumes and single sheets. The older printing houses in Nurnberg and Augsburg experienced noticeable competition from, among others, John Boydell in London, Pierre Françios Basan in Paris and the Remondinis in Bassano, Italy. From Boydell, Basan and the Remondinis issued reproductions of old and new masters, portrait series, topographical views, architectural and ornamental designs, scientific illustrations, mythological figures and much more. Their supply included both exclusive collections and a steady flow of cheaper prints. The latter were pictures to glue on snuff boxes and fans, portraits of celebrities or depictions of events such as princely entries or balloon flights. These popular prints were an important part of the eighteenth-century visual culture, although they have not been held in high esteem in eighteenth-century art theory or in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art historical research. Boydell, Basan and the Remondinis were not alone in their enterprises. Their interests were shared by numerous other distributors, dealers, merchants and publishers in most urban European centres, including Stockholm.1 It was not, however, the commerce

1   About Basan: Pierre Casselle, ‘Pierre-François Basan: marchand d’estampes à Paris (1723–1797)’, in Paris et Ile-de-France, Memoirs de Paris 33, 1982, pp. 101–185; about the French print market: Kristel Smentek, ‘“An Exact Imitation Acquired at Little Expense”: Marketing Color Prints in Eighteenth-Century France’, in Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France, Washington, 2003, pp. 9–33; ‘Sex, Sentiment and Speculation: The Market for Genre Prints on the Eve of the French Revolution’, in French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Philip Coinsbee, New Haven and London, 2007, pp. 221–243; about Boydell: Timothy Clayton, The English Print 1688–1802, New Haven and London, 1997, pp. 115, 177–180, 209–210; about the Remondinis: Anton W.A. Boschloo, The Prints of the Remondinis: An Attempt to Reconstruct an Eighteenth-Century World of Pictures, Amsterdam, 1998.

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in itself that was new for the eighteenth century, but the explosive scope, the variation in supply and the increasing social and geographic dissemination. This commercial field of activity, the print market, will be part of my framework in the following study. My objective is to explore a number of commercially distributed prints, bought and sold in Stockholm in the second part of the eighteenth century, with attention to their representations, functions and insertions in conceptual and practical systems of attraction. Of importance for this study is the thought that theory (knowledge, concepts) is deeply embedded in practice. The point is not, however, that theories (in this case articulating perceptive/receptive concepts) in a hierarchical sense should determine practices (such as the market). Theory and practice are taken as reciprocally shaped and re-shaped by different modes of using and experiencing within certain discursive and material frames. Consequently, this study deals with prints as objects of conceptual and material consumption or attraction. These two partly overlapping concepts are the guidelines for my interpretative framework and are attractive to me since they, in the case of cultural products, can be said to align market practices or material acquisition with conceptual patterns of appreciation or modes of interpretation. For cultural products, such as pictures, literature and music in the early-modern period, this field of research has been more or less codified in the anthology edited by Ann Bermingham and John Brewer, The Consumption of Culture 1600–1800: Image, Object, Text (1995).2 The different contributions in the Consumption of Culture volume have in common attention to responses, audiences, fields of distribution and meaning production in terms of the recipient rather than the remitter or the artist. This collection of texts is also a part of the larger turn towards research on early-modern consumption in the humanities and historical/social sciences by the end of the twentieth century, discussed above by Göran Rydén in the Introduction to this book. The following chapter proceeds from these briefly outlined approaches, which in the case of commercial prints will be exemplified in greater detail in the following. More essential to explain here are some assumptions underlying attraction, especially with the often-noticed elusiveness of the particular eighteenth-century viewer of prints in mind. In this study, attraction does not capture reception in the traditional sense oriented towards particular recipients and intentions. Analytically, I proceed from searching a conceptual web, assumed as a horizon of knowledge that interlinks practice and works to shape attraction. When referring to knowledge (concepts, theory) I am not in the first place thinking of what is generally meant by systematic or scientific theory, but bodies of statements circulating in popular media, usually recuperated, adapted and processed from

2   See esp. Ann Bermingham, ‘Introduction’, in The Consumption of Culture 1600– 1800: Image, Object, Text, eds Ann Bermingham and John Brewer, London and New York, 1995, pp. 1–20.

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more extensive sources.3 It is such frames of reference that Pierre Bourdieu understands as the cognitive equipment through which social agents interact with the world. For Bourdieu, responses to cultural products are the effects of structural correlations between one’s conceptual horizon, one being involved in a world of enacted practices and habitual ways of thinking, and one occupying a signified and signifying social space.4 More than simply underlying my claim for attraction, this view of knowledge is also my motivation to repeatedly refer to eighteenth-century newspapers and encyclopaedias as institutionalised elaborators (recuperators, etc.) of knowledge of various sorts – brief or in extenso, repetitive or original – which also bears on a methodological consideration. My approach to textual and pictorial eighteenth-century material is guided by intertextuality.5 The intertextual/thematic reading I pursue has implications regarding distinctions such as local and international, high and low culture and the idea of the unity of an artist’s/author’s body of work. Especially important for the Cosmos project is my belief that the distinction between the local and the international cannot be upheld in the world of commercial prints. The geographical space for this study is, on the one hand, localised in eighteenth-century Stockholm. But on the other, it is exactly the pictures locally on offer that challenge national demarcations: in a positive sense they are objects transferred from abroad. But in a more conditional sense they may or may not visualise anything nationally determined. As the market supply of pictures disclaims national demarcations, so do the local papers too, which, in addition to the prints, form my main corpus of material. I will work myself through themes treated in Stockholm’s newspapers, as well as in the Encyclopédie, and turning my attention to their thematic interrelations, regarded as connotations present in the cultural space of the interpretative audience. But first of all, I will turn to the market. The Market and the Social Trajectory of Prints The distribution of prints in Stockholm shows, in the case of agents, marketing and commercial methods, several similarities with European metropolises such as London and Paris. But in one specific sense, Stockholm parts from these. In the 3   Cf. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith, London and New York, 1972, esp. about the formation of enunciative modalities, pp. 50– 55, and the enunciative function pp. 88–100. 4   Cf. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice, London and New York, 1984, esp. pp. 165–171, 484–485. 5   Cf. ‘intertextuality’ in Julia Kristeva, ‘The Bounded Text’, pp. 37–63, and ‘Word, Dialogue, and Novel’, pp. 64–91, both in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Leon S. Roudiez, trans. Thomas Gara, Alice Jardine, Leon S. Roudiez, New York, 1980.

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Swedish capital the print market was not specialised. There were no ‘marchands d’estampes’, dealers who were principally engaged in the production and distribution of prints, and no ‘print shops’. But with or without specialisation, there were still a lot of prints circulating in the public market. It is exactly this relative absence of specialisation that plays an important role when considered as a continuous field of consuming possibilities, in which prints were aligned with the meaning and value of other things. Marketing advertisements in the local newspapers demonstrate that prints were particularly distributed by book dealers and luxury product merchants, as well as by engravers/entrepreneurs and on the second-hand market. In addition to the prints produced in Stockholm by local engravers there was also a regular flow from abroad, chiefly from France and England.6 After the 1770s the commercial supply of Swedish prints increased, which can be described as an extension of an already existing market of both imported and local works. Swedish engravers’ establishment on the market did not, in other words, imply that the international supply decreased, nor that existing intermediary structures disappeared (the market remained differential), but that new practices appeared and some older ones were reinforced. The latter in particular concern the publishers’/the book dealers’ predominance in the market and cooperation with local engravers. The book dealers’ assortment of prints covered a wide field of genres and motifs ranging from cheap wood cuts to collections after old masters like the well-known French Recueil Crozat, but with an amazingly persistent dominance of portraits. It is evident from the numerous advertisements, which announce their supply to the ‘Portrait-collector’s benefit’ or offer specific collecting categories such as portraits of priests or physicians, that portrait collecting was an expected public interest.7 Carl Christoffer Holmberg and Carl Christoffer Gjörwell are both representative for book dealers and publishers that were involved in the production, the importation and the commercial distribution of prints. In Holmberg’s bookshop were displayed portraits of English and French royalty and politicians along with philosophers and poets like Rousseau and Voltaire, and encyclopedicians like Diderot and d’Alembert, not to mention Swedish regents, scientists and intellectuals. In itself, the range of prints on offer exposes an effort to provide the presumed buyer with alternatives regarding quality, size and motif, thus pointing to an assumed consumer interest of social extension. The engraved and printed pictorial medium can very well be characterised by its adaptability and accessibility. When the Swedish, locally renowned, engraver Jacob Gillberg’s portraits of King Gustav III and Queen Sofia Magdalena (Figure 7.1) first reached the market they were sold as relatively expensive, highly qualified, large sizeworks after the painted portraits   The statements referring to the Stockholm print market are drawn from my ongoing research and will be presented in my forthcoming doctoral thesis Art in Popular Circulation: Knowledge, Media and Market in 18th Century Stockholm, 2014. 7   See, for example, advertisements in Stockholms Posten, 1779, No. 249, 5/11; No. 258, 15/11; 1796, No. 283, 9/12; 1797, No. 32, 8/2. 6

Prints and Attraction in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm

Figure 7.1

Portrait of Sofia Magdalena, Jacob Gillberg (1724–1793), after Lorens Pasch the younger (1733–1805), engraving, 37.9 cm × 27.1 cm, 1774

Source: Photograph © Uppsala University Library.

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Figure 7.2

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Portrait of Sofia Magdalena, Fredrik Akrel (1748–1804), engraving, 24.1 cm × 17.3 cm

Source: Photograph © Uppsala University Library.

by the Swedish court painter Lorentz Pasch. In that manner the elite commission of unique pendant portraits transformed into multiple prints of an esteemed quality. But soon enough the bookshops offered alternatives to the portraits by Gillberg; among others, Fredrik Akrel’s version of Sofia Magdalena (Figure 7.2). This print was smaller and less expensive than Gillberg’s, but still a qualified work

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from the copper plate and a recent depiction of the queen. Also with emphasis on alternatives, during 1779 the book dealer Henrik Gustaf Runemark carried out a campaign in two newspapers for one of his own enterprises, portrait plates of the newly baptised crown prince’s sponsors from the estates. The advertisements explicitly point out that the five plates, with a number of portraits on each, could be cut if someone wished to purchase just a single portrait (the prices were set in accordance with the rank of the sponsor in question), they could be sent by post to the provinces and they were recommended as suitable both for binding into a book or framed for decorating the wall.8 It is reasonable to assume that the supply of alternatives was adjusted after socially differentiated consuming habits, which is also suggested by the ubiquitous second-hand market. The dissemination of prints in second, third, fourth, etc. hand was in itself an institution, engaging private actors on single occasions as well as well-established second-hand dealers and ranging from the social elite to more modest haberdashers’ stalls in the streets. The availability of alternatives, whether first- or second-hand, is an important aspect of the market, since it widens the social sphere for possible acquisition in regard to the public that actually was, directly or indirectly, addressed by the advertisement as its first-hand target. In his re-reading of William Hogarth’s graphic satires, Mark Hallett has pointed to the suggestiveness of newspapers’ advertisement pages in their function of both meeting and shaping a generalised customer: ‘such pages both respond to and construct a specific audience’. In charting the London papers, Hallett recognises an urban, relatively literate middle sector, neither exclusively ‘aristocratic’ nor ‘plebeian’, that took interest in metropolitan entertainment, science, literature and prints.9 This picture of the first-hand public is to a high degree also implied by the Stockholm papers’ advertisement pages. The marketing of prints in the frame of other supplies acknowledges the rising middle sector and attributes to them a keen interest in literary and public amusements and a willingness to subscribe to printed matter, books, pictorial prints and papers. These general statements on the predominance of a first-hand public for prints ranging from the upper end to the lower middle can be further exemplified by the print series Solemnities, distributed and executed by the Swedish engraver Per Floding and his pupils.10 The sheets were marketed as a subscription and published along with a list of the subscribers stating their names, ranks and occupations. In 8   Advertisements mentioning the sponsor plates are published in Stockholms Posten, 1779, No. 84, 24/4; No. 199, 10/9 and in Dagligt Allehanda,1779, No. 12, 16/1; No. 17, 22/1; No. 62, 17/3; No. 91, 24/4; No. 129, 11/6; No. 158, 16/7; No. 208, 13/9; No. 279, 6/12; No. 295, 24/12. The sponsors’ portraits were engraved by the Swedish engraver Johan Snack (1756–1787). 9   Mark Hallett, The Spectacle of Difference: Graphic Satire in the Age of Hogarth, New Haven and London, 1999, p. 25. 10   Solemniteter, som föreföllo i kongl. recidence-staden Stockholm, åren 1771 och 1772, Stockholm, 1772–1779.

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terms of their social space, the 408 subscribers represent the middle and upper echelons of society and are dominated by office holders and members of the lower aristocracy. As a whole, the group of subscribers includes individuals ranging from the highest stations to small-scale tradesmen or artisans. But however present, both the former and the latter are by far outnumbered by those covered by one or more of the following three criteria: occupations that demanded formal education (such as bookkeepers, secretaries, civil servants), titles of nobility that were given for merit rather than for peerage, or occupations as office holders/higher servants in court and state departments. These traits signify social subjects of relative educational and economic means, an urban stratum in eighteenth-century terms classified as ‘persons of rank’ (‘ståndspersoner’) if not included in the nobility. The collection of names does not, of course, guarantee that each one actually viewed the pictures, and with the second-hand market in mind it does not say much of the potential buyer. The wider significance of this sort of list is, as a printed and socially circulated document, its function of exposure and thereby a mechanism that contributes to the alignment of socially classified subjects with consumer habits. It is precisely this alignment of social space and preferences that the habitus of Bourdieu offers a way of understanding, as a concept that mediates between social structures and intersubjective taste. Bourdieu calls the habitus ‘schemes of perception, thought and action’, which are shaped and re-shaped in the institutions of the family, formal education and the more or less formally codified practices and systems of knowledge shared by social groups.11 The habitus is, in other words, learnt by practices and hypotheses that are enacted and repeated in a socially classified space, and the product of certain material, educational and cultural conditions, which are naturalised as dispositions to appreciate and interpret in certain ways. The cultural conditions at stake in the shaping of the habitus which are noted here are the practices and taxonomic structures of the print market, and consequently the market’s alignment to a social space later classified as bourgeois. The importance I attach to the market has to do with understanding the material acquisition of prints as an element in the intersubjective and habitusshaping experience of pictures. The pre-reflexive or culturally naturalised habit of being exposed to prints in certain commercial milieus (such as bookshops) worked to generate a culturally and socially shared field of references. In the bookshops, engravings were literally and metaphorically displayed and indexed as part of a general taxonomy of other goods: maps and music sheets together with books, pamphlets and papers with scientific, political, religious, poetic or philosophical contents. The book dealers’ and the publishers’ domination of the print market annexed graphical sheets in a field of prints, books and knowledge,   Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice, Cambridge and Malden, 1990, pp. 52–65, quote p. 55. For discussions of habitus in connection with social distinction and socially sanctioned taste, see Bourdieu, Distinction, pp. 49, 165–171; 238– 241; 468–472. 11

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just as the consumption of the first-hand public annexed the prints to a bourgeois social space. Prints in the distribution field of bookshops were incorporated in a trade characterised by knowledge on offer. With this point of departure, the next section will turn to knowledge as pictorially stated, starting with a closer look at Solemnities. Prints as Knowledge and the Attraction of the Overview The prints entitled Solemnities exemplify some pictorial traits that point to overviews, surveys and documentation. After the dedication sheets follow a series of plates and written pages which alternate between panoramic and close-up views, depicting the events surrounding the death of King Adolf Fredrik and the accession and marriage of Gustav III. The sheet ‘Blueprint and elevation of the lit de parade in the corner hall in the Royal castle where the late King Adolf Fredrik’s corpse was on public display the 28th of February and following days 1771’ (Figure 7.3) shows, in the upper quarter, the royal sarcophagus viewed from the front and some distance back. The lower part of the plate changes viewpoint and renders the royal lying in state from a bird’s-eye perspective. The technical marking of the seemingly exact positions of the royal suite, with corresponding letters and names, offers a more comprehensive view than could ever be seen by a human in the room. The upper and lower parts of the picture thus visualise double points of view and double syntaxes: the schematic marks of the blueprint constitute a different language from the pictorial survey of the sarcophagus surrounded by funeral decorations, a language which is drawn from technical manuals and which speaks of precision, exactitude and documentation. The overview of ‘Blueprint’ is then followed by scenes depicting castrum doloris in the funeral church, which in turn are followed by close studies of the decorations and emblems on display in the chapel (Figure 7.4). This pattern is repeated throughout Solemnities. The cumbersome titles draw attention to the specific time, place and event, contradictory to eighteenth-century art theoretical discourse on the eternal value of the beautiful and the ideal. However, in relation to genre and collecting practices the specificity of the titles turns into a convention in itself. Solemnities is an example of what was usually referred to as ‘the remarkable events of the nation’, although consumer interest in collecting royal entries, nuptials, baptisms and funerals as well as portraits of noteworthy personas went beyond the national in a purely geographical sense.12 Prints of the funeral of Maria Theresa of France are just one example of the many international ‘remarkable events’ that were   In his treatise on prints, Floding lists royal funerals, entries, nuptials, baptisms and ‘other feasts and illuminations’ as candidates to be executed in engraving as the ‘remarkable events of the nation’. Per Floding, Handlingar, Rörande en Ny Upfinning i Gravuren, Stockholm, 1766, p. 44. 12

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Figure 7.3

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Blueprint and elevation of the nuptials of Adolf Fredrik 1771, Per Floding (1731–1791), engraving, 39.3 cm × 24.6 cm, published in Solemnities 1772–1779

Source: Photograph © Uppsala University Library.

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Figure 7.4

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Emblems and provincial weapons in the Gustavian chapel during Adolf Fredrik’s nuptials 1771, engraving, 39.6 cm × 24.6 cm, published in Solemnities 1772–1779

Source: Photograph © Uppsala University Library.

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distributed in Stockholm together with Solemnities. Views of Lisbon, Petersburg and Naples side by side with prospects of Swedish towns and buildings were, like the portraits, offered together, in collections and series that drew attention to the quality of the overview. In eighteenth-century literature on prints, one can distinguish a number of recurring themes that praise the usefulness of engraving, point out the transportability and duplicability of the printed pictorial medium, and refer to the graphical syntax and the convention of textual elements as easily accessible as both units and tools of knowledge – themes that can be thought of as the very tropes of engraving. Of particular interest here is the repeatedly promoted liaison between seeing and knowing, which in the frame of pictorial overviews acted as a determinant of their foremost value. The theme of seeing and knowing introduced the article about engraving in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, in a passage that was borrowed from Joseph Strutts dictionary of engravers (1785). Prints were understood to provide the surest way to communicate representations of visible objects: Of all the imitative arts, painting itself not excepted, engraving is the most applicable to general use, and the most resorted to from the necessities of mankind. From its earliest infancy, it has been called in, as an assistant in almost every branch of knowledge; and has, in a very high degree, facilitated the means of communicating our ideas, by representing to the sight whatever is capable of visible imitation; and thereby preventing that circumlocution, which would ill explain, in the end, what is immediately conceived from the actual representation of the object.13

In his treatise on prints, Floding elaborated on the tropes of engraving, as he knew them from practice and theory experienced during his 12 years in Paris. This he reformulated and re-enacted at home as an engraver/entrepreneur and professor in the Academy of Painting. With the ‘circumlocation’ in mind, Floding was in no way original in his claim that a print as an image in general, and especially as a printed and easily accessible image, ‘renders more information about the thing being treated of than the most circumstantial description [in words]’.14 The collecting of prints as objects of knowledge and the primacy given to the visual as a mediator of information was also granted by the central position 13   Joseph Strutt, A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 1, London, 1785, p. 1. Cf: […] c’est à cet art que nous devons les plus sûrs moyens de communiquer la représentation des objets visibles; c’est lui qui nous a dispensé d’avoir recours à ces descriptions embarrassées, & presque toujours fautives, dont on étoit obligé de se servir pour faire connoître ce que l’on peut aujourd’hui mettre sous les yeux, & indiquer clairement, à l’aide d’une estampe accompagnée d’une courte explication ‘Gravure’, Encyclopédie Méthodique. Beaux-arts, Vol. 1, Paris, 1783–1832, p. 392. 14   Floding, Handlingar, p. 35. See also p. 30.

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attributed to sight in empiricist epistemology. In this philosophical thinking, the human mind was conceived of as divided in separate but co-working faculties (reason, memory, imagination), such that each one, by processing sense data, produced a specific sort of knowledge. Writers referring to this general scheme and the mind’s work made extensive use of the pictorial metaphor ‘image’, standing for a unit of knowledge assumed to promote the efficiency of the cognitive process.15 With varying degrees of exhaustiveness and in such different locations as in Locke, in the Encyclopédie and in the paper Stockholms Posten, the sense of sight was attributed an encompassing position as a mediator of sense data, and the mental image was singled out as a prerequisite for thinking, in the sense that mental images, or memory, provided the material for the more reflexive faculties, reason and imagination, to work with.16 In a summarising translation of the article ‘Imagination’ in the Encyclopédie, a writer in Stockholms Posten explains that ‘nothing enters the understanding without an image’, indicating that it is the immediate transformation of sense impressions into mental images that furnishes the cognitive apparatus with raw material.17 Through the imagination’s composition of compound images in the memory, called ‘store room’ by the writer, new notions or images are created. In these discussions, ‘image’ does not, of course, explicitly target pictorial prints, but rather by extension promotes trust in the efficiency of visual representations. The documentary and knowledgeable qualities attributed to prints like Solemnities make them stand close to two other printed and widely distributed media: papers and encyclopaedic literature. Together with, for example, what Anna Cullhed in this book characterises as a ‘cosmopolitan press’, pictorial prints were in several material and discursive ways a naturalised part of the wider print culture of the time.18 When the Swedish newspaper Posttidningar in the 1730s introduced the first issue of their weekly appendix, it was stated as the paper’s raison d’être that ‘man’ in general always feels desire for more knowledge:

  The general statements on empiricist theory are based on Jean le Rond d’Alembert, ‘Discourse préliminaire’, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Paris, 1751–1765, esp. pp. xvj–xvij. 16   ‘[S]ight, the most comprehensive of all our senses’, John Locke, An essay concerning human understanding complete and unabridged, collated and annotated by Alexander Campbell Fraser, New York, 1959, Book II, Chap. IX, §9; ‘le sens de la vûe fournit seul les images; & comme c’est un espece de toucher qui s’étend jusqu’aux étoiles, son immense étendue enrichit plus l’imagination que tous les autres sens ensemble.’ ‘Imagination’, Encyclopédie, Vol. 8, p. 561. 17   ‘Om Imagination’, Stockholms Posten, 1798, No. 42, 20/2. 18   Cf. also David McKitterick, Print, Manuscript and the Search for Order 1450– 1830, Cambridge, 2003, esp. pp. 178–183. 15

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Man is by nature so inclined to learn anew, that there are few amongst them, who would not willingly want to be informed about the remarkable that can occur, however occupied they otherwise are.19

The appendix considers it to be the exception from an assumed norm not to want to educate oneself about the state of the world. The paper, as the documentary pictorial prints, was construed to meet a purported need for orientation within what the appendix lists as […] various sciences, such like history and there to pertaining parts of geography (the description of the earth), genealogy (the number of dynasties), chronology (the counting of time), politics (the art of ruling states), nation’s and state’s particular interest, and likewise miscellaneous people’s customs and laws.

The general overviews of knowledge that the appendix offers the reader was also thought of as the foremost task for encyclopaedic literature: to collect, organise and summarise knowledge and thereby transform what was commonly recognised as the sheer bulk of knowing in ‘various sciences’ to something manageable for the particular individual.20 With the ambition of making the incessantly increasing number of books surveyable, another paper announced the first part of the never-fulfilled project of a Swedish encyclopaedia, modelled after the French Encyclopédie. The writer assumes that the necessity of an encyclopaedia holds for everybody, whether searching for knowledge or for improving social behaviour: What is then the benefit of an encyclopaedia? General light, general use. No learned, no citizen exists, who does not, on more than several occasions, need to advice himself, whether for memory or for practice, with a work such like this. […] Social life derives, from a work encompassing all knowledge, an advantage and a pleasure, that is acclaimed in nearly every occasion.21

The writer then invites every ‘patriotic male’ to contribute to the encyclopaedia, thus proposing a gendering that throws light on the text’s pronouns and assumed subjects. The comprehensive ‘man’ and ‘citizen’ has been called by Joan B. Landes, in her feminist critique of Habermas, a product of Enlightenment rhetoric with social implications that subsequently contributed to the exclusion of women from   ‘Företalet Til Anmärckningarne Wid Swenska Posttidningarne’, Anmärckningar Wid Swenska Posttidningarne, 1734. 20   About Cyclopaedia as an example of these ambitions, see Richard Yeo, ‘A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chamber’s “Cyclopaedia” (1728) as “The Best Book in the Universe”’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 64, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 61–72. 21   [Carl Christopher Gjörwell], ‘Svensk Encyclopedie’, Upfostrings-Sälskapets Almänna Tidningar, 1787, No. 49, 30/4, p. 386. 19

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the public sphere.22 And as Landes and other scholars of Enlightenment culture and theory have argued, this seemingly inclusive rhetoric was nurtured by the concept of enlightenment itself as interlacing the likewise ideologically saturated attitudes to printed media. The self-reflections above, of agents in the field of print culture, express an attitude to information and printed matter which involves the documentary pictorial print. And by the same move they also imply or prescribe an addressee, by alluding to the embodiment of an assumed desire for knowledge in socio-culturally defined attributes. The anonymous, but male, ‘man’ or ‘citizen’ is further specified through the assumed willingness to, or habit of, informing himself through papers and encyclopaedias, and through his presence in a social space, including the field of distribution in which papers and prints were circulated. Within this frame, ‘social life’ was also tied to a disassociation with ‘pedantry’, or narrow scholasticism. Both the desired overview and the sort of media covering it suggest that it was the general orientation of the layman before the scholar’s specialisation that was considered worth striving for, which implies the ability to socialise and converse, to move easily from one topic of discussion to another: ‘A fellow, who is grown up amongst books, and is good for nothing else, is a poor sociable man or a pedant.’ The author of this quote in Stockholms Posten did not hesitate to determine the gender of both the ‘sociable male’ and the ‘pedant’.23 In no respect should this proposed subjectivity be regarded as a report of a contemporary reading or viewing public, but as an ideological force in discursively constructing it. The texts quoted here were meant to be read, they were not restricted by specialisation or exclusively addressed to a learned few. Their general appeal can, of course, be explained in terms of creating opportunities for improvement of both knowledge and sociability through the pursuit of papers, prints and the like. One of the functions of the printed media is, however, to publicly manifest or display a legitimate ideal, or to disseminate, in this case, a discourse of enlightenment that is empowering for some but not for others. Through the attribution of authoritative social signs and modes of behaviour and interests to the assumed public, the overviews are by extension tied to the phantom of the general ‘man’ or ‘citizen’ . The overview is thereby legitimising already privileged standpoints and norms of desire. Before moving on, it should be noted here that my framing of documentary prints, as tools of knowledge and as engaging in the broader print culture of enlightenment, alludes to a divide in terms of cultivating the authoritative mind as something above the body and the feelings. This is an issue that I will return to later.

22   Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution, Ithaca NY, 1988, pp. 40–65. 23   ‘Pedanter’, Stockholms Posten, 1784, No. 71, 27/3.

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Prints as Decorations, Luxuries and Conveniences in the ‘Agreeable Embellishment of House Rooms’ The advertisements marketing prints highlight the alternative of framing them for exposure, an indication of the novel fashion for ‘glass and frame’ display in an everyday living environment.24 I now turn my interest from knowledge to decoration, as a function of prints and as material and semantic fields of reference that constitute sets of discursive and social practices working to create meaning and value . The adaptability of the medium, as knowledge and/or as decoration, is exemplified by the next picture, a scene from around 1790 showing a bourgeois interior, the chamber of the supervisor Heimberger in company with his daughterin-law (Figure 7.5). Displayed on the wall (and not organised in a print portfolio providing an overview) are two engraved portraits, likely Gillberg’s pendants of the royal couple (cf. Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.5

The chamber of Georg Diedrich Heimberger, Carl Wilhelm Swedman (1762–1840), watercolour, 25 cm × 32 cm, around 1790

Source: Photograph © Sören Hallgren, Nordic Museum.

24   The quotation in the heading is from Floding: ‘The Swedish nation has, in these recent times, gained considerable taste for employing a quantity of French engravings to the agreeable embellishment of their house rooms.’ Floding, Handlingar, p. 43.

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It is striking that the depicted figures do not compete with the individualising visualisation of the room. The possibility of identifying objects of everyday use has been made possible through the richness of detail and precision and through the equal emphasis on the various material elements. The individualisation of the objects can be described as the difference between a generally sketched or abstract background of types and differentiated or conspicuous items. In other words, the scene shows something more than framed pictures: flanking the portrait in the middle are two monochrome sheets behind glass (notice the reflection of light) with, for the printed medium, typical engraved frames and address lines with the sitter’s coat of arms at the bottom. The prints are, of course, as separate material units, not decorations in the same way as the mussel crest of the stove. But as integrated in the symmetrical and decorative whole created by the group of pictures, they are an integrated part of the embellishment of the room. And as objects among other objects displayed in the room they are also inserted in a specific material category indicated by, for example, the tray, the bottle and the glass, the veneered card table, the drop-leaf table, Heimberger’s chest buttons and knee clasps. These objects are typical of what historians of the eighteenth century usually refer to as ‘new consumer goods’.25 The material milieu in the Heimberger interior is, in other words, significative of a certain trade, where prints were systematically categorised within a range of other goods, namely the luxury market. By the same logic as I described above, the material frame of books, publishers and papers, as culturally acknowledged signs that form connotative affinities between objects of various kinds, I am here proposing the same function for the market of luxury ware. Such goods were sold by the Stockholm merchant Joseph Schürer along with a stock of about 8,000 prints, mainly imported from the well-known French dealer and engraver François Basan.26 In addition to the prints, Schürer sold: boxes and inkpots of ivory, candlesticks of British steel, fans, laces, Dutch post- and writing paper, watch chains, knee- and shoe buckles. The items of Shürer’s stock put ‘new consumer goods’ to the fore as a culturally recognised order of things which included prints. And as decorations, the prints are also plunged into the much-debated eighteenth-century question of luxury, and with it a wide-ranging material and semantic network. It is exactly these debates and tensions, with their references to alternately sumptuary laws, sin, flesh, progression, improvement and other potentially opposing concepts, that make the decorative print potentially radical. 25   See, for example, Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Oxford, 2005; Woodruff D. Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability 1600–1800, New York and London, 2002. 26   Schürer’s business with Basan is indicated in the following material: The estate inventory of Joseph Schürer 1786/1:231; a letter concept dated 19/5 1786 from the magistrate answering requests from Basan through Floding in Registratur 1786, both in the City archive in Stockholm (Stockholms stadsarkiv); Casselle, ‘Pierre-François Basan’, pp. 168–169, note 62.

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The eighteenth-century displacement of luxury, or the transformation from sin to progression, have been treated by several scholars, among them Maxine Berg and Dena Goodman.27 My focus here will confine itself to one theme; luxury being manifested as discourses, on the one hand prizing civilisation and progression projected upon diverse objects and phenomena, and, on the other, construing the same token as possible threats. As Goodman has pointed out, luxury had the function of an easily appropriated umbrella term for moralistic attacks on modern society’s decline, but nevertheless in addition to its novel and positive connotations of fashion, taste, national and public benefits and the progression of arts and trades. The tension surrounding luxury thus cuts through both the traditional meanings of Christian sin and princely excess and the ‘new luxury’, being construed in progressive and/or moralising terms. In the printed speech Discourse on the value and benefits of the liberal arts, the president of the Swedish Academy of Painting, Carl Fredric Adelcrantz, engaged in the luxury debates.28 Luxury is described by Adelcrantz as a positive progressive force and as a characteristic of the civilised world, much like the position David Hume endorses in ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’.29 The luxury Adelcrantz is referring to is thought to exist in an expanded field of experiences, objects and pleasures, which ranged from the level just above the absolutely necessary for survival to the most extravagant. An assumed innate desire, spurring both individuals and nations, is considered the foundation for the particular individual’s and the nation’s improvement respectively, in step with gradual advancement and dissemination of trades, manufacturing, sciences and arts. This desire is identified by Adelcrantz and other propagators of luxury with a natural drive that has to be satisfied with the values and objects of modernity, fashion and decoration along with their qualities of ‘pleasure and convenience’. This view on the expanding category of luxury, a typical stance in the discourse on progression, can be said to articulate a relationship between the objects in the Heimberger interior: The Burgher is by nature entitled to the same pleasures and conveniences as the noble man: He is with remarkable drive and merriness pursuing his trade and handicraft: He raises early and sleeps late, for, as well as the former, have a convenient house, embellished rooms, fashionable furniture.30 27   Berg, Luxury and Pleasure, esp. pp. 21–45; Dena Goodman, ‘Furnishing Discourses: Readings of a Writing Desk in Eighteenth-Century France’, Luxury in the Eighteenth-Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, eds Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, Houndmills, 2003, pp. 71–78; see also Christopher J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 101–195. 28   Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz, Tal om de fria konsters värde och nytta, Stockholm, 1757. 29   David Hume, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Edited and with a Foreword, Notes and Glossary by Eugene F. Miller, rev. ed., Indianapolis, 1985, pp. 268–280. 30   Italics mine. Adelcrantz, Tal om de fria konsters värde, pp. 19–20.

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For the assumed ‘Burgher’, luxury was aligned with ‘convenient house, embellished rooms, fashionable furniture’, which is a rather vague description. But where Adelcrantz is quiet, the Heimberger interior speaks more perspicuously by visualising the objects, which, together with their fields of association, embodied and communicated ‘convenient house’, etc. Acting as signs of urbanity, fashionability and luxury, prints were in their decorative function indexed into a register of goods connected to the consuming culture of the societal middle. Luxury in Adelcrantz’s speech, although never explicitly defined, is not oriented towards the traditional values of exterior manifestation, nor towards splendour and magnificence, but towards individual pleasure and convenience. The previous concept is used in Swedish eighteenth-century texts as a close synonym to ‘delight’ (‘behag’) and the latter, ‘convenience’ (‘bekvämlighet’), is referred to in conjunction with the body’s interactions with its physical environment. In recent research, convenience has been analysed in relation to new building types and changes in light and sanitary arrangements in living environments.31 The concept is, however, also imbricated into a wider field of connotations and specific sets of applications, corresponding to the terminology of Adelcrantz, and to the semantic scope of the Frech ‘commodité’. The latter could include any object or device, utilitarian or pompous, which either relieved the body from pain or added to its convenience.32 This direction towards the physical in eighteenth-century theories of luxury and progression has been discussed by Michael Kwass in terms of a sensationalist order of consumption.33 I will be following Kwass’s suggestive pointing to the sensationalist view here, not primarily to explain consumer attraction, but with the ambition of opening the concept of convenience for charting a field of tension between the dualistic pair of body and mind. In both materialist and sensationalist theories, all well-being, as all knowledge, more or less closely depends on sense impressions: sensations evoke a physical chain of impulses, as vibrations in the nerve fibres, which stirs emotions or ideas of different kinds. In this sense, sensationalist theories thoroughly embrace the corporeal, the materially construed world.34

  John Crowley, The Invention of Comfort, Baltimore and London, 2001; Katie Scott, ‘The Interior Politics of Madame de Pompadour’, Between Luxury and the Everyday: Decorative Arts in Eighteenth-Century France, eds Katie Scott and Deborah Cherry, Oxford, 2005, pp. 110–152. 32   Michael Kwass, ‘Ordering the World of Goods: Consumer Revolution and the Classification of Objects in Eighteenth-Century France’, Representations 82, Spring 2003, p. 94. 33   Kwass, ‘Ordering the World of Goods’, pp. 87–116. 34   About ‘sensationist’ and materialist philosophy, see John O’Neal, The Authority of Experience: Sensationist Theory in the French Enlightenment, University Park PA, 1996, pp. 197–223. 31

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The paper Nyare Almänna Tidningar, in an article entitled ‘Reflections on business and pleasure’, distinguishes and compares the different sorts of delight man is considered able to experience. These delights are partly due to innate predispositions for certain modes of feeling, partly due to ‘the body’s tools, that needs to be in one’s assistance to feel this pleasure’.35 The body appears in the text as a domain that gets increasingly more significant the less the pleasure concerns the internal and higher senses, as feelings and thoughts are distinguished from the sensations of the palate, the touch, the sight, etc. Although this conventional hierarchy is certainly in place in the text, it is important also to notice that it still held room for describing even the most physical experience as a positive force: ‘bodily pleasures are […] not a humble part of human happiness’. This explicitly stated corporality covered both the case of sensations which merely stirred the delight of the exterior senses or extended to stimulate the reason, the passions or the imagination. In the Encyclopédie section on ‘plaisir’ are gathered some qualities in nature or in things which evoke the direct pleasure of the body (in contrast to the more complex pleasure of the heart, etc.).36 Among them are listed the sensations of colours and their appearance as patterns against a background, the sensation of the new appearing in front of the well-known, and the sensation of proportion and symmetry (as in the arrangement of pictures in the Heimberger interior). Those qualities are considered a part of the pleasure evoked by painting, poetry, music and other ‘noble’ arts, a part that belongs to their physical qualities, pertaining more to the values of decoration and convenience than to the ideas, narrations, etc. expressed in the work. The sensationalist approach seizes ‘convenience’ as the pleasure of seeing and touching that is beneficial in itself, in no need of help from reason, the imagination or the passions. In other words, the sensationalist approach to decoration concerns, first, an embrace of the individual experience, and, second, a drive towards the bodily, the latter in the double sense of a physical chain of vibrating nerves and as an experienced satisfaction not necessarily governed by reason or passions. This second aspect is also the key to the potential radicalism of the sensationalist mode of perception. Bodily experience can be said to be inscribed in a zone of peril, something always in danger of collapsing into indecency and degeneration. In conventional and legitimate discourse, as in the ‘Reflections on business and pleasure’, ‘bodily pleasures’ were only stated as an open road to intensified happiness as long as they were not opposing moderateness, decency and reason. These pleasures were given company by the implicit suspicion that they were always running the risk of turning into something excessive, indecorous and contrary to reason. The Encyclopédie article articulates a corresponding connection 35   Italics mine. ‘Betraktelser öfwer Sysslor och Nöjen’, Nyare Almänna Tidningar, 1773, No. 75, 3/12. 36   ‘Plaisir’, Encyclopédie, Vol. 12, pp. 689–691; the following quotes are drawn from pp. 689, 691.

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or affinity between certain sense experiences – not all of them decorous – by the positioning of the word ‘pleasure’ in tandem with ‘bliss’ and ‘voluptuousness’, where the latter is described as ‘totally sensual […], that serves the languid, the debauched and the libertinuous’. In addition to the expressed view that the bodily sphere was dangerously close to degeneration, both writers agreed on yet another thing, namely that physical pleasures were subordinated to the pleasures of the more reflexive senses’ cognitive operations: The pleasures of the body have barely any duration, except those they borrow from a fleeting need; but as soon as it is exhausted, the pleasures of the body become the seeds of affliction; the pleasures of the mind and the heart are thus certainly superior […].37

By extension, decoration was not ascribed the power to evoke the pleasures of the passions or reason, but was held to be, as long as it provided a legitimate, decent experience, something worth liaising with ‘human happiness’. The writers quoted above were not alone in alluding to the assumed inherent threat of bodily pleasures, of their running into degeneration. The sensationalist understanding of the delight of decoration had morally concerned adversaries, who subsumed modernity with all the claimed corruptions of luxury, which is the view of a Rousseauian moralist who produced the article ‘About the Pretty’ in the paper Stockholms Posten.38 The double sense of the Swedish title, ‘Om det Täcka’, is not possible to translate, but encapsulates some of the writer’s misogynist points. ‘Täcka’ refers on the one hand to the pretty (fine, delicate), and on the other hand to the expression ‘the fair sex’ (‘det täcka könet’). The decorative quality is localised by the anonymous writer in an array of near synonyms which are all assigned the value of falseness and decadence: the pleasant, the polished, the polite, the exposed and the charming. As other moralists, the writer is furthermore placing decoration (along with its near synonyms) on the weaker side of a couple of wellestablished oppositions, where voluptuousness, femininity and desire to please were polarised against virtue, masculinity and bodily soundness and strength. The anxiety over declining morals is projected on the ‘fair sex’, that is the woman, who is discursively constructed to embody charm, delight and, through the logic of connotations, sexual excesses. Decoration thus emerges in the intersection between the metonymies luxury and vice or prettiness and voluptuousness, and likewise between the opposing discourses on, on the one side, luxury and progression (which includes trade, civilisation, convenience, fashion and so on), and on the other, moralism’s construction of luxury’s collapse into indecency, with its web of aligned references. 37   Les plaisirs du corps n’ont guere de durée, que ce qu’ils en empruntent d’un besoin passager; dès qu’ils vont au-delà, ils deviennent des germes de douleur; les plaisirs de l’esprit & du cœur leur sont donc bien supérieurs […]. 38   ‘Om det Täcka’, Stockholms Posten, 1783, No. 8, 11/1.

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The conventional set of oppositions, as body and mind in Nyare Almänna Tidningar and in the Encyclopédie, along with those that inform the article ‘About the Pretty’, is necessarily reciprocally exclusive. But in another sense the concepts that exclude each other are mutually evoked by, and ascribed meaning in terms of, the other. The writer in Stockholms Posten could not complain about ‘the pretty’ or the decorative without putting it in relief and defining it against ‘the beneficiary’ (for morals, for society, etc.). Along the same lines, the discourse on progression and luxury, on the one hand, and the anxiety over the time’s declining morals on the other, were not only interconnected through overarching semantic fields, imbricated in the concept of luxury itself, but also by the function of the opposing poles to evoke each other. The pleasure of convenience that the Heimberger interior visualises and which play on the semantic field of both progression and moralism, is my way of answering a question of attraction first provoked by prints in ‘glass and frame’, exposed in an interior milieu as decorations. However, the concepts of luxury, convenience, sense experience, etc. also have a set of connotations more or less explicitly concerning sexuality, as indicated by the juxtaposition of terms in the ‘plaisir’ section in the Encyclopédie. The network capturing luxury and decoration thereby also constitutes a framework for understanding a specific genre of prints circulating Swedish and international print currencies in the last decades of the eighteenth century. The Gallant Genre: The (In)decency of Pleasure in Prints The print Le Jardinier Galant (Figure 7.6) shows a scene taking place in a garden. The gardener has left his tasks and pays all his attention to a young girl, shown with a deep décolletage facing the viewer. In fact, he is actually seducing her.39 The sexual implications of ‘seduction’ are alluded to, partly, by the closeness of the couple’s bodies, their holding hands and their meeting gazes. The act of seduction is partly suggested by the third figure, the watching girl with the astonished wide open eyes and her finger raised in a gesture of silence. She has caught the embracing couple performing something secretive, even forbidden, which she has not only seen, but also heard, indicated by the speaking open mouth of the gardener. The seduction and its sexual allusions are also pointed to by the keyword in the title, ‘galant’. In another print, L’Amour Frivole (Figure 7.7), the scene is taking place in a boudoir, an intimate room. Here, the viewing, which amounts to the violation of physical boundaries, is enacted by a man appearing by the French window, taking advantage of the woman’s sleep to get a glimpse of her breasts. The dropped book 39   Cf. ‘seduction’ in Nicholas Mirzoeff, ‘The Flickers of Seduction: The Ambivalent and Surprising Painting of Watteau’, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of his Time, ed. Mary D. Sheriff, Newark, 2006, pp. 123–132.

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Figure 7.6

Le Jardinier gallant, Isidore-Stanislas Helman (1743–1806), after Pierre Antoine Baudouin (1723–1769), engraving, 38.4 cm × 27.6 cm

Source: Photograph © Bibliothèque nationale de France.

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L’Amour frivole, Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet (1731–1797), after François Boucher (1703–1770), engraving, 32.4 cm × 25.2 cm

Source: Photograph © Sanna Argus Tirén, National Museum of Stockholm.

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on the floor suggests that she has been reading before slumbering, and the framed picture on the wall, displaying what is most likely a woman interacting with a Cupid, is, just like the mythological couple on the clock, a hint about the content of her dream. And also just like the garden scene, the room is somewhat disorderly; accessories and clothes are, like the plants and the gardening tools, dispersed. Both prints are centred on sensorial experience, or the pleasure of watching, listening and touching. Both prints also play on a stock register of visual codes, including the sleeping lady with a book, the secretive watching, the settings in gardens and intimate rooms, the dispersed objects (as signs of interruption for indulging in more desirable activities), which all contribute to visualising the theme of ‘gallantry’ in the particular sense it acquired during the eighteenth century.40 Returning once again to the market, these two prints were sold in the shop of the luxury dealer Schürer, categorised as ‘French copperplates in the gallant genre’.41 Together with approximately 500 sheets imported from Paris, they carry titles that illustrate the concept of gallantry. The titles speak of shepherds and shepherdesses, Amor and Hymen, sleeping women, dangerous reading, surprised couples, bathing nymphs, motifs more or less explicitly connoting sexuality. In spite of this, gallantry is not to be captured as a name referring solely to pictures or a sphere of motifs. In the Encyclopédie, the word appears both under ‘erotique’, as a literary tradition after the Greek poet Anacréon, and has its own entries under ‘galant’/‘galanterie’, which, as the former, renders the erotic connotation explicit, but characterises it in behavioural terms: To be gallant, in general, is seeking to please by delightful attention, by flattering obligingness. […] He has been very gallant with his ladies, means solely that he has shown them something more than politeness […]. Likewise with gallantry, which signifies sometimes wittiness of the mind, polite speech, sometimes small gifts of trinkets, sometimes affairs with a woman or several; and even, since recently; it has ironically signified the services of Venus […].42

  A thorough discussion of erotic iconography is provided by Philip Stewart, Engraven Desire: Eros, Image, and Text in the French Eighteenth Century, Durham NC and London, 1992. 41   Estate inventory of Joseph Schürer 1786/1:231 in the City archive in Stockholm (Stockholms stadsarkiv). 42   Etre galant, en général, c’est chercher à plaire par des soins agréables, par des empressemens flatteurs. […] Il a été très galant avec ces dames, veut dire seulement, il a montré quelque chose de plus que de la politesse […]. Il en est de même de galanterie, qui signifie tantôt coquetterie dans l’esprit, paroles flatteuses, tantôt présent de petits bijoux, tantôt intrigue avec une femme ou plusieurs; & même depuis peu il a signifié ironiquement faveurs de Vénus […]. ‘Galant’, Encyclopédie, Vol. 7, p. 427; see also ‘Galanterie’, pp. 427–428. Eroticism during the eighteenth century partly connoted other areas than today; see the discussion in Mary D. Sheriff, ‘Une approche subversive: la dimension érotique dans la peinture du XVIIIe siècle’, Histoire de l’art, No. 66, avril 2010, s. 27–38; and 40

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In addition to the art of pleasing, flattering and flirtation, ‘galanterie’ includes what is further described as ‘the vice of the heart’ which is no less than ‘libertinism given a decent name’. For the female part this is assumed equal to corruption and ruin.43 The asymmetric relation between the agents of gallantry assumed in the Encyclopédie corresponds to an active male part enacting a certain behaviour onto a more passive female recipient. It is a point of view that can always be found in the eighteenth-century press and a point that is in part echoed in the prints, not least in the unabashed behaviour of the cavalier in L’Amour frivole. Contrary to both these prevailing eighteenth-century assumptions, and interpretative strategies in recent research, I do not assume these prints to be expressive of any monolithic ‘male gaze’. First of all, they also visualise and acknowledge pleasure and activity construed as feminine. This can be seen in the watching/listening of the third figure in Le Jardinier gallant, just as in the woman’s state of dreaming in L’Amour frivole. It is the higher, cognitive, faculty of imagination that is put to work in the very activity of dreaming, in contrast to the coarseness attributed to the senses. Furthermore, this ambivalence or stating of gender in terms of both female submission and female reflexive activity, pleasure and sensorial desire, do not exclusively construct the viewer of gallant prints as male, a point that has been noted also in the research on eighteenth-century pornography.44 The erotic references of the prints above are reminiscent of the genre’s typical exposure of bodies in various stages of undress, naked nymphs, scenes of masturbation and other more or less explicitly frivolous subjects. These themes were described as dangerous in popular discourse with implicit or explicit reference to one salient idea: the power attributed to the sense of sight to stir emotions in terms of the pair of sight and touch, with the former as the more pure and less corporeal of the two and conforming to the polarisation of body and mind. Expressing an anxiety about the naked body, whether masculine or feminine, a letter writer in the paper Posten singles out what is purported to be the greater danger of ‘obscenity’ in images than in other representative media: […] it remains different with a picture representing a naked man or woman: though the picture makes a tremendous impression on sight and memory, and the outcome of the spectacle is commonly one of desire stirred by the copy [the picture], in comparison to the original [the human].45

in Moved by Love: Inspired Artists and Deviant Women in Eighteenth-Century France, Chicago and London, 2004, pp. 126–133. 43   ‘Galanterie’, Encyclopédie, Vol. 7, p. 427–428. 44   Manuela Mourão, ‘The Representation of Female Desire in Early Modern Pornographic Texts, 1660–1745’, Signs, Vol. 24, No. 3, Spring 1999, pp. 573–602. 45   Sign. Uno Syrach, ‘Til Herr Sederik’, Posten, 1769, No. 116, 20/9, pp. 921–923, quote p. 922.

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The result of the erotic gazing, the ‘stirred desire’, suspected to inspire viewing and actions directed towards real, physical, bodies, was assumed to be a product of the powerful impression of images on the mental capacities, and especially the sight’s intervention with the imagination. The idea that artistic representations possessed a power to affect the beholder in terms of instruction and of invoking the passions, has a long tradition in western thinking. Ideal art’s assumed effects of ennobling and purifying affections were articulated, for instance, in such different contexts as in Aristotle and Adelcrantz. As the president of the Swedish Academy of Painting, the latter was well versed in the doctrines of ideal art, a discourse that informs his following words about painting: But except the Holy Scriptures I doubt, that any spoken or written description of our obligations of Christianity, could so easily and with so much stress, as painting, find the way to the heart, as when an educated and experienced painter as his intended subject, chooses and on its scene of action describes the most curious and most touching circumstances, puts them in the lucid order, which is by the imagination most easily grasped, and likewise gives every object a chosen high thought and emphasis.46

The legitimate viewing of ideal art is legitimate precisely by being elevated by the stirring of passions guided by the communication of ‘high thought’. In these two quotes, the dividing line between the ideal and the other is the activation of the physical, the body. Contrary to the dualism stated above, the line between the ideal and gallantry is, like the line between body and mind, to be described in terms of continuity. The emphasis on sense experience expressed in the prints (through their focus on pleasure by watching/listening/touching) is closely interwoven with the reflexive work of the imagination. The senses promote or lead to cognition. Although polarised as inferior to the mind, the senses were thought to transmit the experience necessary for the very capability of imagining and thinking. Another sort of continuity is manifested by the pleasure expressed in the gallant prints as occupying a space in the conceptual web connoting both the legitimate delight of the Heimberger interior and the corruption feared by the defenders of moralism. This latter conceptual continuity is indeed supported by practice, or the market. The gallant genre’s insertion in the luxury trade is constructive of the prints’ double references, both through their content and their function as objects of experience, to sensorial pleasure or the experiential field aligned with the theme of the new luxury. * * *   Italics mine. Adelcrantz, Tal om de fria konsters värde, pp. 10–11.

46

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I will conclude this chapter with two summarising and forward-looking remarks. First, the chapter makes a case for interlinking theory and practice by discussing the commercial distribution of prints as attached to certain values. My study shows how prints were annexed to the book and luxury trades, and how these distributional fields were ascribed meaning in terms of knowledge and decoration. These two concepts mutually refer to an array of goods, market practices including the bourgeois social space of a consuming first-hand public, and a conceptual web localised in popular discourse. In this intersection between theory and practice, the themes of knowledge and decoration are analysed as concepts targeting both assumed properties in the material object (the print), and in the (theoretically constructed) perceiving subject. Knowledge and decoration in the field of references constituted by the notions of body and mind, luxury, convenience and pleasure, shape attraction as intermediaries between qualities attributed to the object of desire and theories of the perceptual engagement with it. Secondly, it is of importance that the perceptual side of these concepts is constructed to embrace the experience of an assumed individual. The collectively stated mind and senses are part of the cognitive apparatus through which individuals experience and interact with the world. It is thus the personal experience that comes to the fore as the model for engaging with cultural products like prints. Even though this experience is collectively theorised, and structured by gender and class priorities, its novel significance not only states but underlines the opportunity for self-formation. Engagement with prints as a way to fashion one’s individual experience has the advantage of offering a more easily accessible capital than traditional marks of distinction such as nobility and wealth. In the social space of the bourgeois, this sort of self-fashioning took part in the replacement of old authorities by providing tools for the formation of the rising ‘citizen’.

FAITH What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. I have no merit in thinking that this eternal and infinite being, whom I consider as virtue, as goodness itself, is desirous that I should be good and virtuous. Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding.

This radical definition of the concept of faith was formulated by Voltaire in his Dictionnaire philosophique portatif (1764). Understanding religious faith like this involves questioning the content of the revealed truth and endorsing the fundamental and rational articles of faith of natural religion. Natural religion’s image of God was not, however, ‘faith’ in Voltaire’s eyes, as it was based on reason and had, therefore firmer epistemic support. His anti-clerical rational approach to religion was based on extensive biblical criticism combined with powerful support for greater religious tolerance. Voltaire’s arguments reflect a standpoint in the extensive discussion of the role of religion in society, the substance of religious beliefs and their intellectual credibility prompted by the Enlightenment movement in eighteenth-century Europe. This involved philosophers and theologians and was largely undertaken within religious bounds. Consequently, the concept of faith was the focus in this process. Its substance and essential features were questioned and rephrased in relation to other concepts such as reason, superstition, experience and tolerance. At the same time as a view of Christianity imbued with rationalism was spreading during the eighteenth century, many theologians were moving in the opposite direction and emphasising the empirical aspects of faith in the form of religious and emotional experiences. This found expression, for instance, in religious movements such as Pietism, Moravianism and Methodism that flourished in Europe and America during the eighteenth century. Anders Chydenius (1729–1803), a vicar from Gamlakarleby in Österbotten, was one of the Swedish priests who affirmed the emerging demands for liberty and tolerance. His faith, however, combined both reason and emotion, natural religion and faith in the revelation. In addition, he distanced himself from Voltaire’s free-thinking anti-clericalism and religious freedom. Chydenius explored new approaches and was to be one of the most important advocates of economic, religious and political freedom of his day – in a Lutheran, pro-clerical package.

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Chapter 8

In Defence of Freedom: Christianity and the Pursuit of Human Happiness in Anders Chydenius’ World Carola Nordbäck

After the extensive confessionalisation undergone by Sweden during the seventeenth century, in the eighteenth century the country faced growing demands for increased freedom in the field of religion. In this chapter we intend to focus on one of the priests who chose to work politically for greater liberty – Anders Chydenius, the vicar of Gamlakarleby in Österbotten. The issue was freedom of religion as well as other liberties, such as freedom of the press, economic freedom and freedom in the labour market. For this reason he was to play an important political role in the Swedish Diets during the period 1765–1780.1 Chydenius’s posthumous reputation has mainly focused on his work for greater civic freedom. He has been described as a pioneering democrat, a proponent of the Enlightenment and an early advocate of human rights. The economic ideas in his political writings have been interpreted as an expression of early Swedish eighteenth-century liberalism.2 Chydenius is mentioned in most of the historical surveys that deal with eighteenth-century Swedish and Finnish history. For instance, in The History of Swedish Economic Thought (1991), Johan Lönnroth describes Chydenius as ‘an outstanding example of a revolutionary liberal thinker’. Lönnroth continues: ‘eleven years before the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Anders Chydenius, a Finnish-born,

  Jonasson, Maren and Hyttinen, Pertti (eds), Anticipating the Wealth of Nations. The Selected Works of Anders Chydenius, 1729–1803, New York, 2012; Granberg, Gunnar, Gustav III – en upplysningskonungs tro och kyrkosyn, Uppsala, 1998, pp. 78ff; Virrankoski, Pentti, Anders Chydenius. Demokratisk politiker i upplysningens tid, Stockholm, 1995. 2   Magnusson, Lars, Sveriges ekonomiska historia, 2nd ed., Stockholm, 1999, pp. 255ff; Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 412f; Nordbäck, Carola, Lycksalighetens källa. Kontextuella närläsningar av Anders Chydenius budordspredikningar, 1781–82, Åbo, 2009, pp. 10ff; Carpentier, Jean and Hinke, Helga (eds), The Emergence of Human Rights in Europe. An Anthology, Strasbourg, 2001, pp. 27ff. 1

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Swedish-speaking clergyman, formulated a revolutionary economic liberalism in more uncompromising terms than did Adam Smith’.3 Chydenius is a figure referred to recurrently in Sweden’s economic, political and social history in the eighteenth century and he can therefore serve as a suitable starting point for a study of contemporary changes in thinking.4 I shall focus on his approach to religion and the limits to the tolerance he advocated. What was his view of Christian belief and how were his articles of faith related to his political standpoints? Were there elements of cosmopolitan thinking in the way in which Chydenius argued about faith, citizenship and human rights? What social limits of tolerance did he question? Chydenius’s Life Anders Chydenius (Figure 8.1) was born in 1729 at Sotkamo in the north of Finland – the eastern half of the Swedish realm. His father – Jacob Chydenius – was chaplain in the village. Five years later Jacob became the vicar of the entire Lapland area of Kemi, which was also Finland’s northernmost parish. Anders Chydenius therefore spent most of his childhood and adolescence in northern Finland. When the Chydenius family later moved south to Gamlakarleby, it was to a more prosperous area where both culture and the economy flourished.5 Chydenius studied the natural sciences and theology at Åbo and in Uppsala. Despite his great interest in natural science he chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and was ordained in 1753. He then became an assistant vicar in the chapelry of Nedervetil from 1753–1769. In 1770 Chydenius succeeded his father as vicar of Gamlakarleby, a position he was to retain until his death.6 Chydenius seems to have been motivated by the desire to develop the activities in which he was involved, irrespective of whether the issues were social, economic, theological or agricultural. His agricultural endeavours focused on improved methods of cultivation, new cereals, importing breeds and more highly developed 3   Sandelin, Bo (ed.), The History of Swedish Economic Thought, London, 1991, p. 24. Cf. Rothbard, Murray N., An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Vol. 1, Economic Thought before Adam Smith, Aldershot, 1995, pp. 219f; Furuhagen, Birgitta (ed.), Äventyret Sverige. En ekonomisk och social historia, 1st ed., Stockholm, 1993, p. 44; Morell, Mats and Hedenborg, Susanna (eds), Sverige – en social och ekonomisk historia, Lund, 2006, pp. 152ff; Hedenborg, Susanna and Kvarnström, Lars (eds), Det svenska samhället 1720–2000. Böndernas och arbetarnas tid, Lund, 2006, pp. 140, 152f. 4   In works for the general public he is also described as the father of Swedish Liberalism. See Norberg, Johan, Den svenska liberalismens historia, Stockholm, 1998; Bengtsson, Mattias and Norberg, Johan (eds), Frihetens klassiker. Texter, Stockholm, 2003. 5   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 35–58. 6   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius; Schauman, Georg, Biografiska undersökningar om Anders Chydenius: jämte otryckte skrifter av Chydenius, Helsinki, 1908.

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farm implements. Chydenius was also interested in medicine and performed surgical operations. He was an early advocate of inoculation (variolation) against smallpox, and helped to launch a vaccination campaign in 1761.7

Figure 8.1

Portrait of Anders Chydenius, by the Swedish painter Per Fjällström, 1770 (1719–1790)

Source: Karleby universitetscenter Chydenius.

  Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 62ff.

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Chydenius pursued his political career alongside his clerical duties. He was a member of the 1765–66 Diet, in which he joined the ‘Caps’ and caused a great deal of commotion with his radical political and economic opinions. During this Diet he printed a number of pamphlets in which he criticised prevailing economic policies. His actions contributed to the repeal of the Bothnian trade ban in 1765, which allowed the ports in Österbotten to start trading directly with foreign countries.8 During the same Diet, Chydenius played an active role in extending freedom of the press and thus contributed to the wording of the 1766 Freedom of the Press Ordinance.9 The conditions applying to the work of the Diet and politics in Sweden changed in the early 1770s after the crown prince became King Gustav III in 1771. In August 1772 the new monarch organised a coup d’état that led to a concentration of power and much greater influence for the king. The relative freedom under parliamentary rule during the Age of Freedom had come to an end.10 This shift in the balance of power and the renewed restriction of freedom of the press did not, however, stop Chydenius from continuing to write about issues that concerned him. During the second half of the 1770s he continued his political publications. Two issues in particular attracted his attention. One concerned servants, the other freedom of religion. He continued his struggle on these questions when he took part in the 1778–79 Diet. When he returned from Stockholm after this Diet, Chydenius began an intensive period of writing about theology. He took part in two preaching competitions, triumphing in both. One result was that his sermons were printed. These ambitious texts amount to 1,000 pages and in them Chydenius expressed his criticism of a number of social phenomena, one of them French free-thinking on religious matters.11 Chydenius was a member of another Diet in 1792. As Sweden had recently ended its war with Russia and its government finances were in disarray, the work of this Diet mainly involved extricating the country from the crisis caused by Gustav III’s actions. Chydenius was a keen critic of the monetary policy that had been pursued, and endeavoured to influence economic decisions.12 Chydenius remained active during the 1790s. Although almost 70 years old, he continued to express opinions in line with the standpoints he had adopted during his most active period in the 1760s and 1770s.13 He wrote passionately about   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 97–161.   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 174–243. 10   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 258–271. 11   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 348–360, 375ff.; Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens 8 9

källa.

  Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 380–388.   Chydenius’s last publication was issued in 1799, four years before his death.

12 13

Chydenius, Anders, Svar på K. Finska Hushållningssällskapets prisfråga om det finska landtbrukets upphjälpande, 1799. Schaumann 1908.

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Finnish agriculture and the colonisation of Finnish Lapland. This second issue also allowed Chydenius to give candid expression to a utopian vision of liberty.14 This review of Chydenius’s career has offered an initial insight into the contexts in which he was involved. The time has now come to consider the relationship between his religious beliefs and the liberty he advocated by focusing on two of the political issues that interested him – freedom of the press and greater freedom in the labour market. Free Speech The demand for greater freedom of the press became an increasingly urgent issue during the Age of Freedom. The 1765–66 Diet had been preceded by a discussion of the limits to the public arena, and in this connection emphasis had been placed in the debate on extending freedom of speech and of the press.15 Chydenius was one of a group of members of the Diet involved in drafting the legislation on freedom of the press. Concerted endeavours bore fruit – and the debate resulted in an extension of freedom of the press in 1766.16 This legislation was the first in the world to embody the principle of public access. The requirement that citizens should have some insight into the affairs of state seems to have been formulated explicitly by Chydenius, even though it did not originate with him.17 It requires no proof that an equitable freedom of writing and the press is one of the firmest pillars on which a free government may rest; for otherwise the Estates can never possess the requisite knowledge to institute good laws, administrators of the law will be subject to no control in the performance of their offices and those under its jurisdiction have little knowledge of the requirements of the law, the limits of official power and their own obligations; learning and good sense will be repressed, coarseness of thought, expression and manners gain acceptance and a horrific darkness within a few years cover the entire firmament 14   Förslag til Lappmarkernes uphjelpande af Anders Chydeniup. This work was never published. Schaumann 1908. 15   One example is Peter Forsskål, in Tankar om borgerliga friheten, Stockholm, 1957, pp. 4f. A description of this debate is given in Burius, Anders, Ömhet om friheten. Studier i frihetstidens censurpolitik, Uppsala, 1984. 16   Burius, Anders, Ömhet om friheten; Landgrén, Lars-Folke, ‘1766 års tryckfrihetsförordning och dess omedelbara betydelse för den svenska pressen och dess opinionsbildning’, in Historisk tidskrift för Finland, 2002 (87), 4. 17   Cf. Manninen, Juha, ‘Det öppna samhället. Ett arv efter upplysningstänkaren Anders Chydenius’, in Den gemensamma friheten. Anders Chydenius tankar i dagens värld, Pertti Hyttinen (ed.), Kokkola, 2005; Manninen, Juha, ‘Anders Chydenius and the origins of World’s first freedom of information act’, in The World’s First Freedom of Information Act: Anders Chydenius’ Legacy Today, Kokkola, 2006, pp. 45f.

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of our liberty. But on what basis that freedom should rightly be established, so that on the one hand it cannot be suppressed by any one individual nor on the other hand decline into an arbitrary frenzy, is something that requires more careful consideration.18

In the quotation above we can follow Chydenius’s arguments for the introduction of freedom of the press. This asserts the necessity of freedom of the press for the development of society. Where its limits were to be drawn depended, however, on various social requirements. One was the overall social need for the freer transfer of knowledge and information. This had to be balanced against society’s need to monitor irresponsible individuals who – with no thought of the consequences – could publish violent and unenlightened works. The introduction of such equitable freedom of the press would contribute to positive social development. Somewhat later, Chydenius refined his view on the relationship between thought, writing and public discourse. Printing is, after all, nothing but a method of communicating one’s thoughts to others in absentia. To expect from people such a perfect expression of their views that it is not subject to contradiction and modification is utterly futile. If the statement is preposterous, there will soon be those who will refute it. If it is founded on truth, it will remain invincible, and no fortress can be commended more highly than the one that has withstood the severest sieges. If the language is equivocal, the truth has to be ascertained by published exchanges. If that is refused, it can be from no other cause than fear of the day when the truth will emerge. And nothing can honour innocence more than allowing her to present her arguments to the public. Even if the evil that is printed is read by more people than can listen to a speech, the response given to it is likewise read by more and produces a deeper conviction, so that there is perfect reciprocity in that respect. The falsehood shames its originator but benefits the nation, in that the truth is established and is able to grow firmer roots.

The quotation above describes the mechanisms in a discourse subject to public scrutiny on the basis of the overall utilitarian perspective adopted by Chydenius. It mainly concerned the frank debate needed by society in certain areas. This kind of public discourse would lead to the elimination of erroneous arguments and false conclusions so that the discussion could gradually attain a greater degree of truth. Public discourse like this had to be regulated, however. The liberty of the press that had been attained did not therefore involve total freedom from censorship. Some   Anders Kraftman’s memorandum on the freedom of the press. The real author of this text was, however, Anders Chydenius. See Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 179ff; Chydenius, Anders, Politiska skrifter af Anders Chydenius; med en historisk inledning å nyo utgifna af E.G. Palmén, 1877–1880, pp. 107ff; Manninen, ‘Det öppna samhället’, pp. 41f. 18

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preliminary scrutiny was retained, for theological publications for instance. This demonstrates the special position occupied by theological doctrines and concepts at the time.19 In Chydenius’s eyes acceptable freedom of the press required the limits to be stipulated in accordance with society’s needs. Doctrinal and religious tenets were therefore excluded from the critical forum offered by public debate. In the same way, there were to be statutory limitations of the scope open to the formulation of ideas concerning absolutism which would threaten liberty. Finally, Chydenius wanted to prohibit the kind of texts that ‘jeeringly attacked individuals and offended virtue and sound customs’.20 In his opinion, arbitrary rage, thoughts that could jeopardise and offend society, were what was to be restricted. But at the same time he maintained that false knowledge could also be countered through freedom of the press and the mechanisms of unconstrained discourse. The term free-thinking undoubtedly embodied a duality that Chydenius found difficult to deal with. In principle, freedom of thought was sound in his opinion: but religious free-thinking involved an unbridled liberty of thinking that deviated from common sense.21 This negative attitude to free-thinking was combined with a positive attitude to freedom of thought. Chydenius’s prime aim was to distinguish destructive thinking from positive liberty of thought. The proper use of reason had to be differentiated from the irrational abuse practised by the free-thinkers – those who mocked.22 Chydenius claimed that fundamental religious tenets could not be disputed publicly. The positive mechanisms that led to the truth in other areas did not seem to work when it came to the intrinsic features of Lutheran doctrine. But at the same in another text he wrote that freedom of the press has positive and important effects for religion as well.23 If mankind’s innate darkness and ignorance was to be 19   But, in practice, liberty of the press meant that a series of texts criticising religion could be printed and imported into Sweden. Levin, Herman, Religionstvång och religionsfrihet i Sverige 1686–1782: bidrag till den svenska religionslagstiftningens historia, Stockholm, 1896, pp. 134ff; Lenhammar, Harry, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång: studier i den svenska swedenborgianismen 1765–1795, Uppsala, 1966, pp. 34ff. 20   Anders Kraftman’s memorandum on freedom of the press dated 12 June 1765. Palmén 1880, pp. 107ff. 21   ‘Anders Chydenius’s memorandum on freedom of religion’, Lundhem, Stefan (ed.), Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll: på Riksdagens uppdrag … 24, 1778–1779, Stockholm, 1990, p. 202. In his autobiography, Chydenius describes how he composed the memorandum ‘in consultation with a few friends’. He was also supported in this work by a number of the clergy. See Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, p. 316. 22   Chydenius, Anders, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Af Anders Chydenius, probst och kyrkoherde i Gamla-Carleby, Stockholm, 1779. 23   ‘Report of the third committee of the major deputation of the Estates of the Realm on freedom of opinion and the press submitted to the Diet in Stockholm on 18 December 1765’. Chydenius seems to have had a fairly free hand in composing the introduction to this text according to Virrankoski. See Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, p. 185; Palmén 1880, pp. 113–118.

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dispelled so that true devotion to God could be attained, liberty of the press was needed. Issues relating to the ‘duties that each and every one owes to himself and to others’ could also be dealt with more easily through freedom of the press. When people were granted the possibility of sharing their insights and their knowledge with each other, they could raise themselves from the darkness of ignorance. Chydenius also based this on the theoretical assumption that man was born with no innate concepts. For this reason upbringing, teaching and enlightenment were of great importance.24 This convinced belief in the positive effects of freedom of the press therefore also includes the area of religion. As long as the tenets of faith were protected by law, freedom of the press would also benefit the church and Christianity. Tolerance and Freedom of Religion The prevailing ecclesiastical ideal in Sweden in the middle of the eighteenth century involved a confessional approach to the relationship between the church and the state. Citizenship and membership of the church were linked. National and religious unity found expression in the country’s constitution.25 This attitude to the church was, however, questioned on a number of occasions during the eighteenth century. Demands for greater religious liberty and confessional freedom had been advanced from the beginning of the century. Discussions of this kind took place, for instance, during the 1720s and 1730s and were initiated by spokesmen for Pietism and mercantilism. They challenged the religious monopoly enjoyed by orthodox Lutheranism and referred to the Dutch example, which demonstrated that tolerance was both politically possible and economically gainful.26 The first reform allowing greater religious liberty was carried out in 1741. This gave those confessing the reformed faith and members of the Church of England freedom of religion in Sweden. The decision was made in spite of the powerful opposition of the clerical estate to the proposal. The clerical estate later attempted to have the reform revoked, but it was finally obliged to accept free exercise of their beliefs by those confessing the reformed faith.27   ‘Report of the third committee of the major deputation of the Estates of the Realm on freedom of opinion and the press submitted to the Diet in Stockholm on 18 December 1765’, Palmén 1880, pp. 113–118. 25   Nordbäck, Carola, Samvetets röst. Om mötet mellan luthersk ortodoxi och konservativ pietism i 1720-talets Sverige, Umeå, 2004. 26   Nordbäck, Carola, ‘The conservative pietism and the Swedish confessional state, 1720–1740’, in Confessionalism and Pietism. Religious Reform in Early Modern Europe, Fred van Lieburg (ed.), Mainz am Rhein, 2006; Staf, Nils, Pietistisk kyrkokritik: en kyrkorättslig undersökning, Lund, 1962. 27   Normann, Carl-Erik, Enhetskyrka och upplysningsidéer: studier i svensk religionspolitik vid 1700-talets mitt, Lund, 1963, pp. 28ff. 24

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The question of freedom of religion was raised once again in the 1770s. Now demands were also voiced for tolerance and religious freedom. The final decades of the century have therefore been described by Swedish ecclesiastical historians as the beginning of the ‘age of tolerance’.28 These demands for freedom also divided the church’s representatives. While many sought to maintain the national monopoly of the Lutheran church and its symbiotic relationship with the monarchy, priests emerged who adopted the new ideas about greater tolerance and liberty.29 During the 1778–79 Diet, a concrete proposal was formulated for greater religious liberty for those confessing foreign faiths in Sweden. Together with a group of like-minded priests and noblemen, and with the support of Gustav III, Chydenius drafted a memorandum that was submitted to the speaker, Archbishop Carl Fredrik Mennander.30 Its contents aroused the wrath of the bishops in the clerical estate. Despite the church’s opposition, the other estates in the Diet chose to support the proposal, as did Gustav III, and the advocates of liberty finally triumphed politically. In 1781 an edict on tolerance was therefore issued governing the rights of Catholics in the country. In the following year regulations were issued containing ordinances on the domicile and activities of Jews in Sweden. These amendments to Swedish legislation can be viewed as an expression of the parallel development also taking place in many other countries towards greater religious liberty.31 The differences of opinion in the clerical estate are clearly shown by the records of the 1778–79 Diet. The clerical estate’s records depict, for instance, two major threats. One comprised the negative outcomes of extended religious liberty that could be feared. Here Catholics were viewed as the main threat to Swedish unity. It was claimed that extending their rights exposed native Lutherans to religious temptations. Sweden’s peace would be torn to shreds and its clergy forced to devote their energies to religious conflicts. But this threat was only portrayed by the side that was critical of the proposed extension of religious liberty.32 The other threat consisted of religious free-thinking. This danger was alluded to by the advocates of more liberal legislation and their opponents.33 The latter claimed that this would encourage free-thinking. In this way they suggested that the advocates of liberty were helping to increase contempt for religion. Those   Granberg, Gustav III, p. 67.   Granberg, Gustav III, pp. 78–88; Rehnberg, Bertil, Prästeståndet och religions-

28 29

debatten 1786–1800, Uppsala, 1966, pp. 20–33. 30   For Chydenius’s role in this work, see Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 313– 324; Granberg, Gustav III, pp. 78–100. 31   Granberg, Gustav III, pp. 78–88; Tegborg, Lennart and Lenhammar, Harry (eds), Sveriges kyrkohistoria. 5, Individualismens och upplysningens tid, Stockholm, 2000, pp. 140–147. Virrankoski 1995. 32   Lundhem, Stefan (ed.), Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll: på Riksdagens uppdrag … 24, 1778–1779, Stockholm, 1990, pp. 214–224. 33   Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 200ff, 222f.

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who argued in favour of greater religious freedom claimed that free-thinkers were a far greater danger than those who confessed other faiths. One contribution to this debate asserts, for instance, that Swedish Lutherans had more in common with foreign confessions than with irreligious Swedes and the harmful individuals referred to as free-thinkers.34 Here, membership of the church was not decisive – the boundary line ran instead between the faithful and those who criticised religion. For this reason nationality and confessional affiliation were less important. Nor did Chydenius view those practising foreign confessions as posing any threat. There was only one God and the members of other faiths that wished to worship Him in their own way and did so peacefully could be accepted. On the other hand, free-thinking did pose a threat to Sweden’s future.35 It was destructive because it led people in the wrong direction. The liberty that Chydenius was fighting for was therefore the right to practise one’s faith – not to live without complying with, or the freedom to criticise, the prevailing faith. Chydenius definitely repudiated this kind of criticism of religion. He claimed that the freethinkers’ portrayal of the church was scurrilous. Such a reform would erode their arguments and so deflect their criticism effectively.36 Chydenius also offered other arguments for the extension of freedom of religion.37 The time had come for Sweden to adopt the same approach as other countries, in the opinion of Chydenius and his fellow authors. In ‘the remotest part of the world itself’ – America – freedom of religion had already been introduced. 38 This had resulted in a flow of immigrants from Europe seeking the continent where this desirable freedom was enshrined in the constitution. The potential wealth that such a population growth involved in the form of a greater supply of labour was an important argument for Sweden’s adoption of the same policy. In the memorandum, Chydenius also described how well the country would profit when ‘agriculture, manufacture and handicrafts could attain new eminence and supported by more shoulders the burden of the realm would be easier to bear for its former inhabitants’.39 Chydenius’s vision was that Sweden would offer a sanctuary for innocent people deprived of their rights as citizens. He appealed to the estates to persuade Gustav III to issue a general peace declaration that would allow individuals fleeing oppression and persecution in their native countries to come to Sweden – ‘that Sweden could be the longed for sanctuary for all of them and the great name of our most gracious king as dear to them as it already is to his loyal subjects’.40 At the same time this would enable Sweden to remedy the acute dearth of population that     36   37   38   39   40   34 35

Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, p. 201. Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 222f. For Chydenius’s view of free-thinking, see Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet.

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prevailed by opening the floodgates and welcoming new and productive members to the realm. Even though Chydenius’s proposal meant further dilution of the Lutheran monopoly of religion in Sweden, his arguments invoked the ideal of religious brotherhood. But his brotherhood encompassed more than the Lutheran Church of Sweden. Could anything then be more well-advised, more in accord with a righteous Christian love for mankind as a whole, more suited to the noble spirit of unity and liberty that befits a fortunate nation and to the true interest of our blessed but under-populated fatherland than that we, at just such a juncture, should tenderly open our arms to all those unfortunates who already are or may in future be deprived of a sanctuary in their native countries and therefore yearn to move elsewhere in search of some protection from violence and oppression for themselves, for their wives and children, and for their property?

Chydenius extended brotherhood to link Christian love of our fellow beings with the need for more labour that Sweden was experiencing. In this way, this extended perspective – with its focus on humanity – was combined with a strictly national utilitarian view. Chydenius attempted to show how freedom of religion in Sweden could contribute to the survival of the human race. The outcome of the charity he advocated was justified in terms of collective self-interest.41 Chydenius also argued from an identity that was based on a shared faith in God. The groups included in this shared identity were those who worshiped ‘the Eternal and Omnipotent Deity who is Father of us All’.42 In this way, Chydenius invoked three different identities on which to base his argument – humanity, national affiliation and all who believed in God. It was this last – based on a shared faith in God – that was the main object of the legislation on religious liberty. This view of Catholicism differed from the prevailing interpretations. Earlier, during the Age of Freedom, Catholicism had instead been described as a major and genuine threat.43 But ideas were expressed in the debate on tolerance that raised a new collective threat instead – the enemies of religion – those who had no religious faith at all.44 Chydenius’s memorandum is therefore an interesting illustration of how a new identity was shaped through the determination of new interconfessional qualities and a focus on a joint external enemy. In view of the great suspicion of Catholics that had long prevailed, Chydenius was obliged to underpin and tone down this overarching religious identity. He     43   44  

Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. Nordbäck, Samvetets röst, pp. 278f. Anders Bäckerström’s memorandum on freedom of religion contains exactly the same argument. Cf. Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 200f. 41

42

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therefore tried to convince his readers that the influence of Jews and Catholics would not affect religious conditions in Sweden in other respects. No, Stockholm has not become Calvinist, although members of the Reformed Church have conducted public services here for several years. Denmark is not Jewish, although that unhappy people lives there in peace and publicly attends its synagogues. Prussia is not Roman Catholic, although these and all other foreign believers are free to practice their religion there.

The tolerance Chydenius advocated involved allowing some specified and strictly limited public arena for religious minority groups. This tolerance would not affect the nation’s Lutherans. Chydenius did, however, envisage a form of long-term religious influence. This did not, of course, involve any kind of mutual exchange, but coercive assimilation of Jews and Catholics who might want to marry Lutherans.45 Chydenius proposed that mixed marriages should follow the rites of the Lutheran church and that children born to them be defined as Lutherans. The distinction he makes is important. It also offers a key for our understanding of the kind of tolerance he wanted to introduce. Catholics and Jews were welcome to convert to the Lutheran faith, while Lutheran citizens were never to be allowed to secede from their own church. To all extents and purposes, therefore, this tolerance involved maintaining religious divisions between the different faiths while at the same time favouring integration in other areas such as finance and the labour market.46 In Chydenius’s text we find lines of argument that allude to fundamental cosmopolitan ideas.47 One example is the geographical aspect. The position adopted by Chydenius in his arguments was global. He referred to developments in other countries and on other continents. In this way he based his argument on knowledge of other cultures and social systems. Sweden was viewed as one country among many, and developments in Sweden should emulate what was taking place in more successful countries. There is a cosmopolitan aspect to this. At the same time it leads us to the aspect of identity. The collective identity he expressed in the form of mankind can also be related to cosmopolitan concepts. But shared human identity had to give way to the hegemony of Lutheran identity in the Swedish realm. The system of tolerance that Chydenius formulated using cosmopolitan concepts was therefore characterised by distinctions and a hierarchical relationship between the tolerant authorities and their subjects. This enables us to determine that the cosmopolitan ideals usually linked to the Enlightenment could also be   Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet.   Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. 47   Schlereth, Thomas J., The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought: Its Form 45 46

and Function in the Ideas of Franklin, Hume, and Voltaire, 1694–1790, Notre Dame, 1977, preface.

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found in many other contexts. This example also illustrates the different ends that cosmopolitan ideas could serve in an ecclesiastical context and demonstrates the complexity of this way of thinking. The same kinds of ideas could be used both to defend the existence of the church and to undermine Christianity’s claims to exclusivity. In this debate, expressions such as freedom and mankind were used for different and, to some extent, opposed purposes. How did the clerical estate react to Chydenius’s arguments? The response it published was very critical.48 It began by questioning the way in which he used the concept of tolerance, claiming that he had totally misunderstood his subject.49 Religious tolerance was not something that had to be introduced – it already existed in Sweden! Tolerance meant, according to the interpretation of the clerical estate, that a member of a foreign faith who came to Sweden was allowed to remain there and practise his religion in privacy. Catholics had for many years had the possibility of holding services in Stockholm, and there had also been a Catholic priest. The criticism of the church expressed by the advocates of tolerance was therefore totally unjustified in the eyes of the clerical estate. Moreover, the critics were presenting their proposals under false colours. The clerical estate claimed that they were not advocating tolerance but freedom of religion. There was, however, a vital difference between these two concepts. According to the clerical estate, freedom of religion would mean that the doctrines of the religious majority would lose their hegemonic status and authority. The adherents of foreign faiths would in this way be allowed ‘to worship openly and publicly on the same footing as this country’s own children’.50 In countries that had introduced similar regulations, such as Poland, this had led to the gradual acquisition of increased privileges by members of foreign faiths so that in the end they had enjoyed the same standing as the country’s own inhabitants, even where its government was concerned. The conclusion was that the form of tolerance that already existed in Sweden also functioned as a safeguard against claims to privileges and power made by adherents of foreign faiths that had come to Sweden. When it came to the positive effects for Sweden’s economy that could possibly result from the arrival of adherents of foreign faiths, the clerical estate was highly dubious. Two counter arguments were expressed. The first was that the refugees that might try to come to Sweden were not the right sort. They would probably be ‘a few insignificant refugees of the meaner kind’.51 This deflated Chydenius’s view of the benefits that could ensue. In addition, the clerical estate claimed that if any industrious and wealthy individuals were to arrive, the country would probably   Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 214–224. The text was printed

48

in 1779.

49   These reservations also applied to the original memorandum which had also proposed greater tolerance, for instance in the memoranda written by Liljecrantz and Bäckerström. 50   Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, p. 215. 51   Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, p. 217.

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not benefit anyway. The foreign non-Lutherans were only likely to stay for a few years, earn a fortune and then emigrate and take their money with them.52 Any profit these individuals might be able to contribute to the national finances was not therefore comparable with the price that would have to be paid in the form of loss of the prevailing religious peace. The negative picture of foreign mercenary traders presented by the clerical estate was accompanied by a proposal. If Sweden was going to try to attract immigrants, why not then choose what kind of inhabitants it wanted? The clerical estate claimed that it would, of course, not be difficult to attract Lutherans. Moreover, the country’s own population must be offered the kind of conditions that would prevent them from choosing to emigrate. Chydenius’s proposal would, however, mean allowing Swedes to leave the country to be replaced by foreigners.53 This kind of rotation of the population may have worked during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but it would be impossible to repeat anything like it again. The only natural thing was to try to induce Swedish subjects who had already emigrated to return and to make sure that the rest of the population did in fact remain in the country.54 If we compare the arguments of the clerical estate with those presented by Chydenius, we find interesting differences. The identities assumed by the clerical estate comprised an international Lutheran identity as well as one that united people who were rooted historically and religiously in Sweden’s own territory. Expressions like ‘the country’s own children’, ‘the Swedish congregation’, ‘our Swedish nation’ and ‘the nation’s own and ancient folk’ were used to describe this cohesive identity.55 This enables us to determine that the clerical estate’s publication was characterised by tolerance restricted to a shared identity sustained by two interwoven aspects – national and confessional affiliation. The kind of tolerance it advocated involved marginalising adherents to foreign faiths as far as possible by restricting their rights as citizens. To the clerical estate, Chydenius’s cosmopolitan arguments were provocative, as in his memorandum he placed different groups of subjects on an equal footing. Citizenship as an indicator of identity was ranked to some extent above religion and would include all those living in the country, irrespective of their confessional affiliation. Chydenius’s proposal had, however, also contained restrictions of the rights of non-Lutherans. For instance, they would be unable to hold any office of state as long as they maintained their former faith.56 One unintended effect of the legislation on freedom of the press and increased religious tolerance was that the other statutes on religion were not enforced as strictly as they had been. This meant that the religious rights of native Lutheran subjects were also extended, even though this had not been the intention of the     54   55   56   52 53

Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, p. 217. Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, p. 217. Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 217f. Lundhem, ‘Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll’, pp. 214–224. Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet.

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reforms. During the 1780s, for example, there were discussions in the press of theological censorship, freedom of thought and religious tolerance. Theological censorship was challenged and anonymous voices based their advocacy of complete freedom of the press on religious issues on this extended tolerance.57 Chydenius does not seem, however, to have taken part in this debate. This emphasises the stance he adopted as to where boundaries were to be drawn for those professing Lutheranism. From his perspective, theological censorship was necessary and religious freedom mainly embodied the right to be religious and to practise one’s faith in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the church. Human Rights At the same time as Chydenius was involved in the work for greater religious freedom, he was one of the protagonists in another political conflict that dealt with how the concept of citizen should be construed and defined. In this struggle he also supported a more inclusive view of the concept than his political opponents did. The conflict referred to dealt with how working conditions were to be organised for groups in society that lacked property. At the end of the 1770s demands arose for more stringent legislation on servants and farmhands to satisfy the labour needs of their employers. This legislation laid down regulations for social groups who were subject to enforced labour. The compulsion comprised regarding individuals with neither property nor employment as vagrants unless they took employment for a year for some master.58 Chydenius reacted violently to these plans. The question was raised at the 1778– 79 Diet and he wrote elegantly on behalf of the rural workers in a publication that attracted a great deal of attention called Tankar om husbönders och tienstehions naturliga rätt [Thoughts about the natural rights of masters and servants] (1778). This pamphlet contained an ardent defence of the right of servants and farmhands to have a greater say in the direction of their own lives. It consistently maintained the human value of servants and farmhands and their rights as citizens. The same theme can be found in Chydenius’s contributions to the ensuing debate in the press.59 In these texts he draws up a view of society and of human beings of a kind not previously encountered in his political writing. It involved more than empathy with the less well-off members of society. By construing the problems as one of civil justice, he combined this empathy with a clarification of their causes   Lenhammar, Tolerans och bekännelsetvång, pp. 151–158, 173ff., 192–197.   Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 297–305. 59   On the subject of Chydenius’s socio-political arguments and struggle for the 57

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rights of servants and farmhands, see, for instance, Edgren, Monika, Från rike till nation. Arbetskraftspolitik, befolkningspolitik och nationell gemenskapsformering i den politiska ekonomin i Sverige under 1700-talet, Lund, 2001, pp. 128–147. Cf. Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 297–310.

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that ascribed the guilt to those in power. His argument consisted of references to divinely sanctioned human rights, cogent descriptions of the abuses of power that took place and the assertion that all individuals were of equal value. He appealed to the reader’s sense of justice and to their capacity for empathy by describing the misery in which many of the poor lived and also the contempt felt by many in the upper classes for servants and farmhands. But, Chydenius maintained, however poor servants or farmhands were, they still had the same rights as more prosperous citizens. Indeed, the regrettable plight of the poor was a result of the self-interested endeavours of the privileged.60 The concept of right was central to Chydenius’s Thoughts about the natural rights of masters and servants. In the introduction to this text he even uses the concept of human rights. Chydenius was referring to the rights ‘pertaining to mankind in general’.61 This approach to rights constituted an important element in his writing about freedom in the text. ‘The prime natural right is for people to be allowed to live, build and dwell on the land, support themselves and their kin, marry and propagate their line’ is the assertion with which Chydenius begins his text.62 He goes on to try to persuade his reader of the injustice of depriving one group in society of these natural rights. Comparison of Chydenius’s pamphlet on servants and farmhands with his sermons shows clearly how he linked the human rights he referred to in his political texts with his interpretation of the Decalogue. The second commandment means, according to Chydenius, that God ordained the right to life, to respect and to property. As the Creator, Lawgiver and Lord over Nature, God had given all of mankind certain needs, duties, goals and qualities that at the next level became rights, for instance the right to exist, dwell, work and create a family. As human rights had been ordained by God, they were universal, unchangeable and inviolable. Even claims to equality were based on the belief that God had created the whole of mankind with identical qualities and rights. A society that granted special privileges to selected groups therefore, according to Chydenius’s reasoning, flouted this fundamental structure.63 Chydenius expressed the same fundamental view of humanity in his political writing as in his sermons. He based this on the natural and God-given right to support oneself and create a family. This endeavour, according to one’s own grace and talents, was part of the human pursuit of happiness.64 Let us see how he described this in Thoughts about the natural rights of masters and servants.

60   Chydenius, Anders, Tankar om husbönders och tienstehions naturliga rätt, Stockholm, 1778. 61   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §1. 62   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §4. 63   Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa, pp. 363f. 64   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §3. Cf. Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa, pp. 361f.

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Where virtue is not encouraged, where vice is favoured as much as virtue, there one is straining every nerve to create dissolute citizens. Individual happiness and individual advantage is the true, the effective motive force in the activities of all free people, whereas knocks and blows are really appropriate to slaves. He is a wise ruler who recognises the need to remove from acquisitiveness the aristocratic fetters in which the self-interest of some has confined them, but a great one if he has the ability to do so. Our statute on servants, with prescribed annual wages, is inevitably bound to create idlers and slack workers, whereas free labour contracts, on the contrary, encourage everyone to make themselves deserving of a greater reward through diligence and loyalty.65

Chydenius argued for the view that the pursuit of happiness and the endeavour according to individual advantage for greater reward should be viewed as positive motive forces. He maintained at the same time that these motive forces had to characterise the actions of all free individuals. This means that acknowledgement of self-interest was a civic right to which the servants and farmhands were just as entitled as their social superiors. Chydenius claimed that this kind of development would create more industrious and happier workers. Chydenius often returns to the assertion that society must be organised in accordance with the natural order. God was the great watchmaker who had devised the mechanism, and political representatives had to learn to allow the clockwork to tick away. The natural social order consisted primarily of God’s governing mechanism in the form of free will and the pursuit of happiness. This link between human pursuit of happiness and social freedom was central to Chydenius’s argument.66 The way in which Chydenius argued on the issue of servants and farmhands would lead to their total acknowledgement as citizens.67 He approaches the question of their wages, for example, from this perspective. Even though servants and farmhands possessed no property, they did own two things. They owned their natural liberty and their capacity to work. Other groups, like peasants and merchants, could always attempt to get the best price for their goods; ‘why should the poor, the property of the meanest worker, be subject to taxation and the management of others?’ he wondered.68 This kind of unjust arrangement meant in practice that servants and farmhands lost their rights as citizens to sell their goods, in other words their labour, for the highest price. Another example in which citizenship was raised was the issue of the nonexistent political power of hired labour. Chydenius viewed this as a problem. He   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §8.   Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa, pp. 346–375. 67   Lindberg, Bo, Den antika skevheten. Politiska ord och begrepp i det tidigmoderna 65 66

Sverige, Stockholm, 2006, pp. 192ff. See, for instance, Chydenius’s contribution to Dagligt Allehanda 11 August 1778, No. 180. 68   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §7.

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posed the questions ‘who represents the servants and farmhands? Who has asked their opinion?’ The response was that ‘all those who are members of the estates of the realm are masters, but not one is a servant’.69 It was therefore necessary for someone to speak on their behalf – ‘the right of the meanest but serviceable citizens, who of Sweden’s inhabitants bear the heaviest burdens, whose industry tills the Swedish soil and whose sweat provides other citizens with their necessities and their amenities’.70 Chydenius’s critics asserted that his proposal to give servants and farmhands their lawful freedom would create social chaos. Chydenius claimed that he had been misunderstood. He was not endeavouring to alter how society was governed in any vital way. Obedience, power and the discharge of duties continued to be central aspects of the social order.71 But even though Chydenius maintained that his longing for libertarian endeavours did not affect the system of government, we can see that any extension of his arguments would lead to political changes. For instance, he linked the servants’ and farmhands’ lack of economic rights to their lack of political power. Moreover, he formulated a fundamental principle on the function of liberty and balance in the governance of society as a counterweight to self-interest and capriciousness. Chydenius’s criticism of the unjust balance of power was particularly vehement in his attack on the aristocracy – as a social phenomenon and as the group that in his eyes personified iniquitous self-interest.72 He was referring here to the kind of collective exercise of power that consisted of one group acquiring influence at the expense of others and then abusing this power. But to lay down specific annual wages for servants is the same as allowing the buyer to tax the saleable goods of others, which may have been admissible between gods but between dissolute people can hardly deserve a better name that aristocratic autocracy on the one hand and bondage on the other, which inevitably sooner or later deprives the realm of its natural strength.73

What was the solution to this dilemma?

    71   72  

Dagligt Allehanda 22 January 1779, No. 17. Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, introduction. Dagligt Allehanda 7 January 1779, No. 4. This can be viewed in relation to the widespread criticism of the aristocracy that arose during the last decade of the Age of Freedom. Cf. Virrankoski 1995, pp. 261f., 265f.; Alm, Mikael, Kungsord i elfte timmen. Språk och självbild i det gustavianska enväldets legitimitetskamp 1772–1809, Stockholm, 2002, pp. 137f.; Wolff, Charlotta, ‘Pro Patria et Libertate: frihetsbegreppet i 1700-talets svenska politiska språk’, Historisk tidskrift för Finland, 2007 (92), 1, pp. 41ff. 73   Dagligt Allehanda 7 January 1779, No. 4. 69

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Behold! Here is the whole of my proposal, constructed on the foundations of true freedom. It stands all alone, with no support except the freedom on which it rests and a natural balance or reciprocity between masters and servants, without in the least favouring either or oppressing one more than the other. Away with such a pernicious proposal, most of my readers will probably say. It is bound to put all masters in an extreme quandary, leave them without servants, oblige them to let their properties revert to wilderness or else, in the general disorder that may be caused by it, to sell their estates for half their value. I can well imagine that it would be a thunderclap for many masters, especially those who have now been working vigorously to forge new fetters for freedom, but that will not deter me from keeping closely to my conviction. I am already accustomed to such an outcry and have always noticed that aristocratic power is like a boil, or alternatively a precious jewel, and anyone who touches it is always assailed by a fearful roar that the entire kingdom is perishing, which should be interpreted to mean: that the aristocrats are losing some of their illegitimate encroachments, whereby the realm and the citizens will recover their rights.74

Chydenius’s basic prescription for greater freedom and happiness was a more even balance of power. He does not use the word balance in this quotation, but he creates an image of balance. The cornerstone of liberty was reciprocity and equal power for both sides. Neither could then oppress the other.75 Many advocates of more stringent regulations claimed that servants were lazy and so must be forced to work. Chydenius attacked this point of view by trying to describe the reasons underlying the behaviour of servants and farmhands. From such heavily oppressed souls one cannot expect any civic virtue, when the rod must become almost the sole motive force for his diligence and loyalty, in the same way as the methods applied to the dumb animals. You say: And there is unfortunately no morality among them. I answer: Nor can it exist where every reason for it has so manifestly been removed.76

This is no defence of idleness. An idle person shifts the burden of his labours onto someone else and in this way exploits his fellow beings. But Chydenius claims that the idleness of which servants and farmhands were accused was an enforced idleness, engendered by the injustice of the self-interest of others. The servants and farmhands had become imprisoned in a wrongly constructed system that made criminals of them, whether they were or not. In addition, Chydenius asserted that it was not particularly effective to forbid idleness and punish the idle. Nature itself

  Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §16.   Cf. Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, p. 414. 76   Chydenius, Tankar om husbönders, §9. 74 75

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was capable of punishing the idleness of the poor. It was instead the greed and selfinterest of the landed classes that had to be restrained by legislation.77 The insight to which Chydenius gave expression was that the moral behaviour of human beings was largely the product of the social laws that regulated their daily lives. The educational precepts that spread during the eighteenth century concerned rearing people to become virtuous citizens and subjects. Chydenius combined this tenet with the insight that civic and ecclesiastical edification was merely one element in the creation of a better society. To attain welfare and social morality, people had to be given genuine possibilities of being able to create good lives themselves. These possibilities could be engendered by legislation. Chydenius has sometimes been described as advocating a reduction of government power and demanding freedom from legislation. But I would like to stress that his criticism of exaggerated government regulations did not mean that he championed some form of ‘night watchman state’. The main instrument for the achievement of both liberty and welfare consisted instead of sound laws.78 In my reading of his writings, what is central to his demands for liberty is his insight that legislation played a decisive role in governing the welfare of society. It was not therefore a matter of freedom from laws but the formulation of laws that could foster freedom. Behind Chydenius’s way of attributing the underlying causes of the immorality of servants and farmhands to social injustices lay an analysis that was relatively unusual for the period.79 His starting point was the recognised link between laws and customs that had been described, for instance, by Montesquieu, but he drew conclusions that not many in the Swedish Diet had arrived at before him. Chydenius’s analysis of power meant that the immorality and misery of the lower class was a symptom of an imbalance in economic and political power. This imbalance generated scope for some groups to be activated by selfishness and their own self-interest and exploit the system to profit at the expense of servants and farmhands. Happiness, Self-Regard and Free Will A consistent theme in Chydenius’s theological and political works was his emphasis on the right of human beings to seek their own happiness. He based this on the idea that God had endowed human nature with the drive to pursue happiness together with free will. In his sermons he distinguished between temporal happiness and spiritual happiness. Spiritual happiness or bliss was the true goal of human life and was linked to conversion. Humanity was allowed a foretaste of bliss in life on earth, but perfect bliss could only be attained after death. On the other hand, earthly   Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa, pp. 346–375.   Chydenius, Memorial, angående religions-frihet. 79   Cf. Virrankoski, Anders Chydenius, pp. 418f. 77 78

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happiness could be achieved during life itself and formed a point of intersection between individual and collective needs, actions and goals. When Chydenius discussed human endeavours to attain what was considered good in theological contexts, he used the terms self-regard or self-love. In discussing economic or political issues he used the term self-interest instead. Chydenius tried to make these human drives more salubrious. The kind of vanity or self-interest he defended comprised an orderly and balanced human drive to affirm individual needs and attempt to attain what humanity perceived to be good. But the object of these endeavours was not something each individual was free to formulate for himself. True goodness had already been defined by the revelation and by nature and could only be realised through a combination of virtue, zeal and faith in God. Chydenius’s political and theological writings therefore disclose a way of using the concepts of self-regard and self-interest that was new and unusual for the Swedish clergy. In Lutheran contexts self-regard was fraught with negative connotations. It was linked to the impact of original sin on the human soul. But Chydenius’s use of the concept to describe a positive human feature as well means that he broadened and changed the focus of an area of ethical controversy at the core of Lutheran theology’s view of humanity. Chydenius was able to establish and formulate new conceptual relationships based on this new focus.80 Chydenius’s premise was to conceive human self-regard as the real motive force, and he linked this to human spiritual development. In this way the social theories based on natural law were linked to the theological concept that becoming the image of God and attaining bliss were mankind’s true goals. Self-regard was transformed in this way into a spiritual drive instead of one that merely dealt with self-preservation. The true purpose of self-regard was to lead mankind towards bliss through genuine and unselfish love of humanity. This ennobled it and added qualities like charity and empathy. This fascinating transformation meant the effects of self-regard turned out to embody concern for one’s fellow-beings. Before this transformation could be undertaken a historical explanation – a piece of the jigsaw puzzle – was needed that could remedy the way in which humanity was viewed. This was provided by the Fall and its effect on human nature. Chydenius could use the Fall to show how self-regard had been distorted and redefined. At the same time this transformation also enabled true self-love to be expressed as a general principle. This kind of ego-based brotherly love would create a society in which all citizens took the fundamental needs of others into account. Collective welfare became an outcome rather of this divinely sanctioned egocentric brotherly love. There was no risk of such brotherly love leading to selfeffacement. Individual personal needs had great value as God had commanded human beings to love themselves and then love others equally. All individuals therefore had to love God first, then themselves and finally their fellow beings and   Nordbäck, Lycksalighetens källa, pp. 376–384.

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treat them as they would want to be treated themselves. If everyone acted in this way, society would flourish and individuals would attain prosperity. Chydenius’s interpretation therefore contained no opposition between what was best for the individual and what was best for society. When each human being acted to attain individual happiness the result was social happiness. Here, utility was a central argument. The collective could benefit from the endeavours of the individual. Individual benefit resulted in social benefit. To attain this individual and collective goal, human beings had to act according to their nature by first and foremost seeking what was best for them. In Chydenius’s political texts the concept of happiness is linked with freedom. This is where the political radicalism and explosive power resided. Coercion, tyranny and inequality were the negative counterparts to happiness and freedom. A society could not attain happiness before it was organised so that citizens were granted the freedom to seek their own individual happiness. Exposing the lowest class to coercion and violence meant that a country could never be declared free, irrespective of whether its form of government was more or less liberal. Chydenius’s way of judging a society was therefore based on its smallest constituent element – the poorest of its citizens. The realm could not be constructed at the expense of others – via bondage, coercion or force. But unfortunately this is what happened when liberty was restricted to a few individuals. This could nurture unjust coercion, self-interest and misery for the poor. There were therefore explicitly individualistic features in Chydenius’s political and theological writing. Even though he often displayed great social commitment in his sermons, his message was addressed to individuals. Change had to begin with the individual and for each of them happiness was the goal. There were no social or general benefits that could exist at an individual’s expense. Public welfare was based on the righteous performance of their duties by individuals and their pursuit of happiness. Collective performance of duties was to be safeguarded at the same time as the rights of individuals. Here, the socially oriented perspective with its basis in natural law and emphasis on individual contributions to the common weal had to take second place. Starting from stress on the obligations of individuals to themselves, their righteous self-love and natural rights, Chydenius’s point of view offers a more individualistic Christianity and view of humanity than could be found in many other contemporary Swedish sermons or publications on economics, politics and moral philosophy. The question posed at the beginning of this article was whether there were any cosmopolitan elements in Chydenius’s conceptual world. We have now reached the point where we can proffer a response. Chydenius’s works embodied several forms of cosmopolitan thinking, for instance in geographical, epistemological, ethical and economic respects. But these cosmopolitan ideas took on a singular and fascinating form in Chydenius’s writing. In basing his arguments on the Christian faith and natural law, Chydenius viewed all mankind as equal before both God and the law. He alternated between discussing humanity as a collective and human beings as individuals. These two levels are intertwined in his works. The universal

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was reflected in the particular in that individual liberty was an expression of the collective rights that had been acquired by humanity as a whole. In this we can also see how aspects of cosmopolitan thinking could be integrated into a Christian social ideology. Chydenius’s writing therefore offers one example of how ideas relating to reform and to tolerance with cosmopolitan features could emerge within the church and among the Lutheran clergy. It could be argued that this deprived cosmopolitan thinking of some of the iconoclastic force it possessed in Voltaire’s interpretation. But at the same time we can see that the cosmopolitan features of Chydenius’s arguments mean that his ideas rendered them provocative to some groups. He questioned the limits of tolerance and collective identities in a way that no other member of the clergy had previously in the Swedish Diet. In his endeavours to extend liberty, he queried the hegemonic status of Lutheran identity in the Swedish realm, and in his ambition to offer all individuals the same fundamental rights he challenged the legislation that deprived those in the lowest ranks of society of the possibility of making their own decisions about their lives. In this second case his proposals would have led to some groups losing their privileges so that all citizens could instead be offered the same fundamental conditions and possibilities. This was, however, such a radical change that Sweden was not yet ready for it.

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PEACE There is a deep discrepancy between the reality of early-modern international politics, which were largely characterised by warfare, and the world of political philosophy and religion, in which peace between states was desired and hoped for. Peace was the ultimate aim of any sovereign’s policy. Peace was also an expression of a sovereign’s ability to protect his subjects. Peace, ultimately, was the reason why subjects should obey their sovereign. Peace, of course, was also the ultimate end to any war, and it was supposed to endure. Yet in spite of this prevailing desire for peace, warfare was a much more frequent and embracing feature of early-modern Europe. The discrepancy between the prevalent reality of warfare and the desire for peace is linked to the concept of ‘just war’ – bellum justum. War, especially a religious war, could be fought only for a just cause, and in a just war it was impossible, in other words in defiance of God’s will, to remain at peace with belligerents. Sixteenth-century religious wars as well as the Thirty Years War were fought for just causes. But the situation changed after the Peace of Westphalia when warfare became more explicitly a tool of international politics. Whether a war was just or not became less significant. The concept of war as one resource in international politics left scope for states, especially small ones, to avoid hostilities. Neutrality offered a possibility of navigating between belligerent great powers. This chapter looks at the discourses of neutrality from the mid eighteenth century. It traces the political philosophical and commercial context of the discourse and attempts to link it to the establishment of the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780–1783, in which Sweden played a key role. This league between Russia, Denmark and Sweden, three odd bedfellows, offers an enlightening instance of how different interests, perceptions and considerations interact with each other.

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Chapter 9

Sweden’s Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System Leos Müller Qui est ce donc qui escortera les vaisseaux de guerre suedois? (Lord North, British Prime Minister, on hearing of Swedish naval convoying in 1779)1

What Did it Mean to Be Neutral in the Eighteenth Century? The Swedish ship register for the year 1783 includes two ships named Neutraliteten (Neutrality). On 9 July 1783, a ship with that name, of a tonnage of 136 heavy lasts, left Stockholm bound for Cadiz.2 On 25 September 1783 another ship with the same name left Stockholm. This time its destination was the vague ‘North Sea’. The tonnage was 122 heavy lasts and it was designated as a snow. The same vessel appears in the registers for 1785, 1786, 1787, 1791, 1792 and 1793. During the French Revolutionary Wars we also find ships called Neutraliteten and Neutral. Less surprising, perhaps, are the large numbers of ships with names such as Fred och Lycka (Peace and Happiness), Freden i Norden (Peace in the North), Freden (Peace), Nya freden (New Peace).3 Ship names Neutraliteten and Neutral fit oddly with our common view of eighteenth-century Sweden. Sweden has undeniably been recognized as a neutral country since the early nineteenth century, and neutrality has always been an important component of Sweden’s modern identity, but this characteristic has seldom been traced back to the eighteenth century. In spite of its loss of Great Power status in 1721, Sweden pursued an aggressive and belligerent foreign policy until 1815. Relations with its Nordic neighbours were tense. During the period 1721–1815 Sweden went to war with Russia, Denmark and Prussia on a number of occasions. But this accounts for only one aspect of Sweden’s foreign policy. There is a remarkable difference between Sweden’s bellicose foreign policy towards its neighbours in the North and the risk avoidance of the peaceful foreign policy it   ‘Who will escort the Swedish warships?’ Carl August Zachrisson, Sveriges underhandlingar om beväpnad neutralitet åren 1778–80. Uppsala 1863, p. 20. 2   In the eighteenth century, the tonnage of Swedish merchant vessels was given in ‘heavy lasts’, where one heavy last corresponded to 2.448 metric tons. 3   Sjöpassdiarier (Algerian Passport Registers) 1739–1831, CIIb, Archives of the Board of Trade, Swedish National Archives, Stockholm. 1

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practised towards France, Great Britain and other states outside the Baltic power sphere. The eighteenth century is characterised by the protracted struggle between France and Great Britain that is sometimes called the Second Hundred Years War (1689–1815). Sweden more or less consistently avoided involvement in this struggle. It followed a fairly consistent policy of neutrality at the beginning of the Seven Years War, during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The most outspoken expression of this eighteenth-century policy of neutrality was the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780–1783. This league was an armed alliance of the European neutrals Russia, Denmark and Sweden, formally directed against all belligerents in the War of American Independence, in reality against Britain. This league with other Nordic powers was the reason for giving ships the names linked to neutrality mentioned above. The names given to these ships also indicate the importance of neutrality in a maritime context: there were few other areas in which neutrality was a meaningful concept. Neutrality was important for the Nordic countries’ shipping trade outside the Baltic Sea. As neutrals, they could not, or should not, be attacked by the belligerents and could thus profit from the war. From the perspective of shipping, neutrality could be considered in two very different ways in the eighteenth century. In the commercial context, neutrality was viewed in practical terms with regard to the interests of merchants, ship owners, diplomats and, to some extent, lawyers. This involved the issues of licit and illicit trade, lawful and unlawful prizes, privateering, definitions of contraband, effective blockades and the rights of belligerents to search non-belligerent ships. Problems related to neutral trade and shipping seen from this point of view engrossed diplomatic and mercantile correspondence, as well as the Admiralty courts. From another angle, neutrality was discussed in the context of natural law as a possible (or even, better) method of organising inter-state relations; a model for a new, less anarchical and less antagonistic order of inter-state relationships. In this sense, neutrality was the subject of political thinking and the philosophy of natural law. The number of treatises directly relating to the issue of neutrality is restricted, to the best of my knowledge, but they are important for the evolution of ideas about the concept. The Nordic League of Armed Neutrality, it will be argued, might be seen as an attempt to combine these two disparate ways of looking at neutrality. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss these two perceptions of neutrality and show how and why they converged in the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780– 1783. An important aspect of this development can be found in the discourse on neutrality from the beginning of the Seven Years War to the end the American War of Independence. Sweden was not directly involved in neutral trading during the Seven Years War, because, as we shall see, of its lack of an Atlantic connection and British hostility.4 But developments from 1756 to 1763 had a crucial impact   See Holger Weiss’s contribution in this volume.

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on the formation of the policy of neutrality during the 1770s and the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780. I will therefore start with a summary of views of neutrality before the Seven Years War. Then, attention will be paid to the work of Martin Hübner, the DanishGerman writer and jurist who adapted the discourse of neutrality to specific circumstances in the Seven Years War, and specifically to Denmark’s situation. Hübner had no visible impact on Sweden’s foreign policy in the mid-century, but his views were embodied in the League of Armed Neutrality, and he therefore influenced the shape taken by Danish, Swedish and Russian neutrality policy between 1778 and 1783. Sweden’s standpoint on neutral trading before 1780 was in no way close to the political discourse on neutrality and sound commerce, embodied, for example, in Hübner’s writing. The Concepts of Neutrality and the State of War There were two very distinct ways of looking at neutrality in early-modern political thought. On the one hand, neutrality was seen as a short-sighted, egoistic and morally wicked policy, the resort of a ‘cowardly’ state. This negative view was closely related to the idea of bellum justum (‘just war’), which went back to the medieval period. It asserted entitlement to go to war only if the cause was just, and that in a war fought for a just cause none could stay neutral. According to the bellum justum principle, neutrality was a morally reprehensible position. Even so, the causes of wars can seldom easily be reduced to purely just or unjust ones.5 About 1600, the concept of bellum justum was codified in the writings of Hugo Grotius and Alberico Gentili.6 Grotius opened up the possibility of adopting an intermediate position, although he did not use the term neutral. He argued that if it is difficult to decide which of the belligerents is fighting for a just cause, the nonbelligerent should treat the belligerents impartially. This argument made neutrality a viable and legitimate policy in war. Obviously, within the framework of the post-1648 Westphalian state system it became even more difficult to decide which belligerent was in the right; between 1648 and 1918, inter-state relations were

  Thus, Gustav II Adolph could refute the neutrality of small German states during the Thirty Years War as morally wicked, and he could require their commitment to his ‘just’ war. Yet, he was a pragmatist; in another situation he could adopt neutrality, if it concerned his potential enemy. Ove Bring, Neutralitetens uppgång och fall—eller den gemensamma säkerhetens historia, Stockholm 2008, pp. 35–38. 6   The concept of bellum justum has medieval origins, but in this context I refer to Grotius and Gentili because of their influence on eighteenth-century political thought. See Bring, Neutralitetens uppgång och fall, pp. 38–40; Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden, Chippenham 2001, p. 14. 5

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dominated by realpolitik.7 If all states acted egoistically, in their own best interests, then the egoism of a neutral was not more reprehensible than a belligerent’s. As the moral aspect of warfare was played down – at least internationally – neutrality became a more acceptable standpoint. Nevertheless, neutrality did not only concern the legitimacy of staying outside a war. Neutrality had always had an important economic aspect. Neutrals traded with belligerents, which provided them with opportunities to profit from the bloodshed of others. The issue of neutral trading, or even trading with the enemy, played an important role in a period of protracted warfare. This explains why the issues of neutral trading and shipping lay at the core of the early-modern debate on neutrality, and therefore why they have given rise to as much conflict as neutrality itself.

Figure 9.1

The Benefit of Neutrality, an engraving from 1745

Note: The Dutch Republic, the farmer, is benefitting from the struggle between Britain, France and Spain. Source: American Antiquarian Society.

  For useful reviews of inter-state relations, see P.W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848, Oxford 1994; H.M. Scott, The Birth of A Great Power System 1740–1815, Harlow 2006; J.G. Ikenberry, After Victory. Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars, Princeton 2001. 7

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The British print from 1745 shown in Figure 9.1 offers a good example of the perception of the neutral (here a Dutch dairy farmer) as a cynical profiteer from others’ warfare. This was a typical eighteenth-century view of neutrals, including the Dutch, Danes and Swedes. One particular feature of neutral trading was abhorrent. It was most profitable when warfare involved as many states as possible: the larger the number of neutrals, the poorer the opportunity for making money, as they then competed for the same markets. This view of neutral trading and its ethics illustrates the ambiguous characteristics of early-modern trade. In mercantilist thinking, international trade was perceived as a complement to or component of the hegemonic struggle. And the hegemonic struggle in the post-1648 world concerned international trade and colonies to a large extent – much more than borders and neighbouring territories. Competition in warfare and competition in trade were merely two faces of the same inter-state competition. Trade was supposed to provide the state with economic and political power, but trade itself was also the cause of a hegemonic struggle. David Hume’s ‘Jealousie of trade’ pointed in exactly this direction.8 At the same time, trade could be perceived in much a more idealistic and non-mercantilist way. The ideas of sociability and its expression in trade had also been incorporated into eighteenth-century political thinking. According to Samuel Pufendorf, trade as an expression of exchange between human beings represented a higher stage of human development, a stage of Civilisation in comparison to the Barbarian stage. Pufendorf’s understanding of sociability as a crucial feature in civilised society played a crucial role in the development of Adam Smith’s four stages of human history, according to which the ‘Age of Commerce’ was the most elevated. For Smith, sociability was a necessary precondition of the survival of the human race; indeed, it was also the feature which distinguished human beings from animals. Commerce and the division of labour were natural outcomes of human sociability, and the final and highest stage of human history.9 This was indeed the opposite of the inter-state ‘Jealousie of trade’. Ferdinando Galiani (1728–1787), probably the best-known Neapolitan economic writer, wrote his works at the same time as Adam Smith, and he expressed similarly optimistic views on commerce as an expression of human sociability.10 What makes Galiani relevant in the context of this chapter is his   Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, MA 2005, passim. See also Koen Stapelbroek, ‘The Rights of Neutral Trade and its Forgotten History’, in Koen Stapelbroek (ed.), Trade and War. The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, Helsinki 2011, p. 4. 9   Hont, Jealousy of Trade, pp. 159–160. See also Istvan Hont, ‘The Language of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe’, in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the Theoretical Foundations of the FourStage Theory, Cambridge 1987, pp. 253–256. 10   Koen Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade: Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani’, in Petter Korkman and 8

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interest in neutrality. Galiani wrote his essay about neutrality as a citizen of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, a state comprising Southern Italy and Sicily. Like Sweden and Denmark, the Two Sicilies was a relatively weak state with significant maritime interests. As Denmark and Sweden did, the Two Sicilies adopted a policy of neutrality in Great Power conflicts. Galiani combined his view of ‘good’ commerce with a view of useful foreign policy for the Two Sicilies, a policy of neutrality. In 1782 he published a work, Dei doveri dei principi neutrali, in which he argued for neutrality as a precondition for new and better inter-state relations. This book came out two years after the declaration of the League of Armed Neutrality in Northern Europe. The Two Sicilies joined the League of Armed Neutrality a year later.11 The two different discourses on trade and neutrality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reveal the importance of the issues for the rise of an inter-state system. There are no Swedish authors directly involved in this debate – unless we consider Pufendorf a Swede – yet the issues were highly relevant for Sweden both during the Great Power period (1560–1721) and the eighteenth century, when Sweden had to adjust to its new situation as a small European power. ‘Free Ships, Free Goods’ – Neutral Trade and Shipping At sea, the issue of neutrality concerned the rights of neutrals to carry any goods they wished – even those belonging to a belligerent – and to enter any port they wished – even a belligerent port. The establishment of Dutch maritime dominance by the end of the sixteenth century entailed, in principle, acknowledgement of the Dutch standpoint that a ship’s neutrality covers its cargo – free ship makes free goods.12 However, there was one important exception to this rule, namely cargo that could be used directly for the war effort, such as weapons, ammunition, etc. – the ‘contraband of war’. The definition of contraband and what can and what cannot be used to make war has been the source of many disputes between neutral states and belligerents. Some definitions of contraband were usually included in bilateral trade treaties, in the passages guaranteeing the signatories’ rights to trade freely. For example, the Anglo-Dutch trade treaty signed in 1674, after the Third Anglo-Dutch War, included a relatively narrow definition of contraband, including weapons and powder. It opened up the possibility for the Dutch to trade in naval stores and Virpi Mäkinen (eds), Universalism in International Law and Political Philosophy, Helsinki 2008; Koen Stapelbroek, Love, Self-Deceit, and Money. Commerce and Morality in the Early Neapolitan Enlightenment, Toronto 2008. 11   Stapelbroek, Love, Self-Deceit, and Money, pp. 80–82. Galiani’s work on neutrality was translated into German in 1790. 12   Lance E. Davis and Stanley L. Engerman, Naval Blockades in Peace and War: An Economic History Since 1750, New York 2006, p. 6.

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provisions with Britain’s enemies, because these were not, according to the treaty, perceived as contraband on board Dutch vessels.13 The Danes also enjoyed a relatively narrow, trade-friendly definition of contraband in the bilateral AngloDanish treaty of 1670. It defined contraband as soldiers, weapons, cannon, mortars, ships and, more vaguely, ‘military necessities’.14 The definitions of contraband in the Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-Danish treaties made it easier for the two nations to engage in neutral trade in the eighteenth century. This was particularly important in their Atlantic trade, which mainly involved provisions for the colonies and colonial goods – hardly contraband of war. Sweden’s situation was different. The Anglo-Swedish trade treaty that applied in the course of the eighteenth century had been concluded as early as in 1661 and included a very vague definition of contraband.15 Consequently, Britain was able to define Swedish iron and naval stores – the kingdom’s key export commodities – as contraband of war. This meant that Swedish cargoes destined for France were often seized as lawful prizes. Sweden enjoyed a less advantageous position than the Dutch and the Danes in neutral trading. The rule ‘free ships, free goods’ and the exact definition of contraband of war were two conditions of eighteenth-century neutral trade. Another condition concerned the neutrals’ right to enter a belligerent’s port unharmed.16 This right was also disputed between neutrals and the naval powers. Whereas neutrals declared their right to enter any port with the exception of those under effective blockade, the belligerents argued their right to declare any enemy’s port or even an enemy’s entire coast under blockade. In reality the question was about the effectiveness or lack of effect of such blockades. ‘Free ship, free goods’, contraband and blockades were the three major issues in the whole eighteenth-century debate on neutral trade. As pointed out above, the understanding of neutrals’ rights was normally included in bilateral trade treaties. Britain, the dominant eighteenth-century maritime power, had no general interest in renegotiating treaties, and so the legal grounds for the trading of the Dutch, Danes and Swedes were shaped by agreements made in the seventeenth century, when the international situation and the conditions of seaborne trade were quite different. In addition to bilateral treaties, the rights of neutrals were codified in peace treaties after the wars. For example, the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 included clauses on entitlement to trade neutrally, to free navigation between neutral and belligerent ports and the rule ‘free ships, free goods’. On the one hand the sections of the treaty regarding neutral trade were referred to by neutrals as an international law   Georg Maria Welling, The Prize of Neutrality. Trade Relations between Amsterdam and North America 1771–1817. A Study of Computational History, Groningen 1998 (PhD thesis), pp. 24–25. 14   Ole Feldbæk, ‘Eighteenth-Century Danish Neutrality: Its Diplomacy, Economics and Law’, Scandinavian Journal of History 1983/8, p. 5. 15   Zachrisson, Sveriges underhandlingar om beväpnad neutralitet, pp. 3–5. 16   Davis and Engerman, Naval Blockades in Peace and War. 13

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and, thus, as a guarantee of the rights to neutral trade. Britain, on the other hand, pointed out that no neutral country was a signatory to this treaty. It argued that the only relevant documents as regards the Danes and Swedes were the bilateral trade treaties from 1661 and 1670.17 A crucial moment in the development of the discourse of neutrality, and of the rights of neutrals, came with the Seven Years War. This was largely a war over colonies and colonial trade, and involved much more naval action than the previous wars of the Spanish and the Austrian Succession. It was the war in which the West Indies and the connection between the West Indies and Europe played a more significant role than earlier. It was also a war during which important works on neutrality and neutral trading were published. One of the most interesting individuals involved in this development was the Danish-German jurist Martin Hübner. He is also a good example of a connection between the ideas of a just international order and the concept of trade as a founding principle for a better human society. He argued, from the natural law standpoint, for the benefits of neutral trade; but he must also be read as an advocate of Danish commercial interests during the Seven Years War. Hübner represents a link in the development of the ideas of neutrality of Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel to the League of Armed Neutrality in Northern Europe. Martin Hübner and Neutrality During the Seven Years War Martin Hübner (1723–1795), born in Hanover, moved to Denmark while still a child.18 In 1744, at the age of 21, he became a private tutor to the family of Count Christian Holstein. After studies at Sorø Akademi he was appointed Professor of Philosophy and History at the University of Copenhagen. This position was not salaried, which was not unusual, and Hübner had to wait for a proper tenured professorship. In 1752 he received a three-year stipend for a grand tour in Europe, a journey that went on for longer than planned. He spent seven years abroad, travelling in Germany, Switzerland, France, the Dutch Republic and Britain. He visited universities and many commercial centres. He studied mainly economic   Malmborg, Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden, p. 33.   There is no specialised biography of Martin Hübner. For a review of his political and

17 18

economic thought, see especially Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade’; also Torsten Gihl, ‘Hübner, Vattel och “den väpnade neutraliteten”’, in Festskrift tillägnad Nils Stjernberg, Stockholm 1940, pp. 96–103. For biographical details, see Aage Friis, Berstorfferne og Danmark. Bidrag til den danske stats politiske og kulturelle udviklingshistorie 1750–1835, 2 vols, Copenhagen 1919 and Dansk biografisk lexikon, Vol. VIII (Martin Hübner); Thorvald Boye, De væbnede neutralitetsforbund: Et avsnit av folkerettens historie …, Kristiania 1912. The Royal Library, Copenhagen, have some of Martin Hübner’s surviving papers. For the sources about Hübner see Friis, Berstorfferne og Danmark, pp. 395–396.

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subjects: agriculture, industry and trade attracted most of his interest. After the three years abroad, when his funding dried up, he applied for funds to visit Italy. This indicates increasing Danish interest in the Mediterranean trade and shipping there.19 During his years abroad, Hübner exchanged letters with his influential sponsor, Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, Denmark’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and the architect of the country’s policy of neutrality in the Seven Years War. Hübner also wrote a number of important works. His Essay sur l’histoire du droit naturel appeared in 1758. Alongside this book on natural law he worked on another subject, namely the shipping rights of neutrals, and had already in 1757 sent Count Bernstorff an outline of a book on the subject. Bernstorff was not impressed and Hübner waited another two years before the book could be published in The Hague, as De la Saisie des batiments neutres. In spite of his impressive list of publications and influential protectors, Hübner failed to find proper employment in Denmark. In 1759 a post became vacant at Denmark’s Embassy in London. The Seven Years War entailed increasing problems for Danish vessels. Although neutral, they were seized by British privateers and an increasing number of ships and cargoes awaited the verdicts of the British Admiralty prize courts.20 The Danish Ambassador was unable to cope with the complicated prize cases, and Minister Bernstorff suggested that Hübner, considered a specialist on the rights of neutrals, should move to London to work for the Embassy. By that time Hübner had spent some time in London and was well informed about British standpoints on these issues.21

19   A well-known Swedish economist, and future Minister of Finance, Johan (Westerman) Liljencrantz, was travelling in the Mediterranean in the same years. On Liljencranz and Sweden’s neutrality policy 1778–1783, see Leos Müller, ‘Sweden’s neutral trade under Gustav III: The ideal of commercial independence under the predicament of political isolation’, in Koen Stapelbroek (ed.), Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, Helsinki 2011. On Danish and Swedish shipping 1750–1800, see Dan H. Andersen, The Danish Flag in the Mediterranean. Shipping and Trade, 1747– 1807, Vol. 2, Dissertation University of Copenhagen 2000; Leos Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce. The Swedish Consular Service and Long-Distance Shipping, 1720–1815, Uppsala 2004. 20   On the praxis of the courts, see Tara Helfman, ‘Commerce on Trial: Neutral Rights and Private Welfare in the Seven Years War’, in Koen Stapelbroek (ed.), Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, Helsinki 2011, pp. 14–41. 21   Uppsala University Library owns a sale catalogue of Hübner’s library, made in 1795 after his death, Index Librorum, Martinus Hubner, Copenhagen 1795. The catalogue provides a revealing insight into Hübner’s interests and their development in the course of his life. It includes a large number of books in English acquired in the 1750s and 1760s. The subjects are mainly trade, politics and diplomatic treaties. But we also find fashionable magazines such as Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, The London Magazine, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligence and The Gentleman’s Magazine.

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Nevertheless, his career took another route. Hübner was unable to return to Copenhagen from his European grand tour until 1760, due to health problems. An anonymous anti-British pamphlet Le politique danois had been published a year earlier in Copenhagen and it was rumoured that Hübner was the author. Although his authorship was contested, the British made it clear that Hübner was unacceptable as a member of Denmark’s Embassy in London.22 The appointment of Hübner led to a minor diplomatic scandal but Bernstorff stuck to his guns. Another year was to elapse, however, before Hübner could leave for London, but between June 1761 and the beginning of 1764 he was living in London and working with the prize cases. At the beginning of 1762 he wrote a proposal for a new convention on shipping and trade between Denmark and Britain. His proposal was based on the principles of neutral trade that he had stressed in his earlier work. The most important section related to the rule of ‘free ships, free goods’, and the effective blockade of belligerent ports. Hübner’s basic argument was that these rights were an established element of international law, whereas the Britons viewed them as undertakings included in their trade treaties. Bernstorff considered the proposal unacceptable to the British, and the papers disappeared for years in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Copenhagen. Hübner returned to Copenhagen in February 1764, and in 1765 finally received his salaried professorship in philosophy and history at the University of Copenhagen, which he retained until his death. In the eventful year of 1772 he was even appointed the university’s rector. Nevertheless, his university career was not very successful: he did little teaching and was disliked by students. Hübner was primarily a writer and publicist. After his return to Denmark he continued to take part in the economic debate, especially on agricultural issues. In 1769, together with his old sponsor Count Bernstorff, he founded the Royal Agricultural Society in Copenhagen (Landhusholdningsselskab).23 He left the area in which he had made his lasting contribution – neutral shipping and trade. What makes Hübner’s contribution to the field of neutral rights original? And what makes him relevant for Sweden’s foreign policy? It is his combination of natural law and historical argument, on the one hand, and his detailed knowledge of actual conditions that applied to neutral shipping during the Seven Years War, on the other. In his Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel, Hübner argued for the necessity of building fair inter-state relations on a foundation of natural law. He stated that the principles of natural law were already widely invoked ‘within’ 22   Le politique danois, ou, L’ambition des Anglais démasquée par leurs pirateries, Copenhagen 1759. Maubert de Gouvest has been suggested as the author of the treatise; see Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade’, p. 72, note 28. On Maubert de Gouvest’s authorship, see Ere Nokkala, Passions and the German Enlightenment: The Political Thought of J.H.G. von Justi, Florence 2010 (PhD Thesis, European University Institute), pp. 205–206. 23   Friis, Berstorfferne og Danmark, pp. 117–133.

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societies, but not yet ‘between’ societies. This lack of natural law principles on the international arena was, according to him, the true cause of wars. Anarchy and competition dominated inter-state relations, instead of cooperation and commerce. Inter-state competition was actually a threat to humanity; a root of the possible collapse of civilization.24 Hübner based his favourable view of humankind on the concept of sociability already referred to. This was also a basic principle of trade, and it characterized trade as good, civilising and humanising, beneficial to all societies. In his major book Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel, he followed the development of natural law from Hugo Grotius and John Selden to Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui.25 From the point of view of inter-state relations, Hübner’s two late works are more interesting and original. In Journal de Commerce in 1759 he published the article ‘Reflexions impartiales sur le droit des nations belligerantes de saisir les batimens neutres’, which had been written a few years earlier. His De la saisie des batimens neutres, ou Du Droit qu’ont les Nations Belligérantes d’arrêter les Navires des Peuples Amis, was published in The Hague in the same year. In particular, this provided important arguments for neutral rights from the Seven Years War onwards.26 Unsurprisingly, the book was dedicated to Johan Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff. The article and the books dealt directly with the seizures of neutral ships by belligerents. Hübner argued that because peace and trade are beneficial to all states, neutrals should act to limit the effects of warfare. From this position he actually argued for the restriction of neutral trade with belligerents – in principle. He perceived the exploitation of warfare by neutrals as a violation of natural law. In this sense he endorsed the argument for neutrality as a basis of a new inter-state order that would develop in parallel with the anarchic inter-state system.27 For example, Hübner asserted that the concept of contraband, crucial to every debate about the rights of neutrals since Hugo Grotius, already revealed a gap between natural law and neutrality as it was perceived in the eighteenth century. As the Dutch historian Koen Stapelbroek pointed out: The invention of the term contraband itself was a corruption of the idea of neutrality from the point of view of Hübner’s idea of natural law and made it subject to a struggle of national interests over the rights of belligerents and neutrals.28

    26   27   28   24

25

Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade’, p. 67. Essai sur l’histoire du droit naturel, London 1757–1758. An Italian edition was published in 1778. Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade’, p. 70. Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade’, p. 71.

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On the one hand, we may read Hübner as an architect of neutrality rights based on natural law – a theorist distanced from the world of realpolitik of his sponsors. On the other hand, he wrote his works in the midst of the Seven Years War, the war in which the British state employed a new policy against two successful Atlantic neutrals, the Dutch Republic and Denmark. The British policy toward the neutrals in the Seven Years War was expressed in two new rules: the so-called Rule of the War of 1756 and the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage. These rules were reactions to the exploitation of trade in the West Indies by neutrals and were of crucial significance for understanding neutral trading in this war and in the wars of 1778–1783 and 1793–1815. To explain Hübner’s ideas in the context of the Seven Years War in the West Indies we need to pay more attention to eighteenth-century Atlantic trade.29 Both Britain and France had important sugar-producing colonies in the West Indies. As consumption rose and the trade in sugar expanded, the fiscal significance of the islands producing it increased and the region became the battleground in the British–French conflict. In peacetime, all trade with the West Indian colonies was regulated. Only privileged ships were allowed to carry goods between colonies and mother countries. In wartime, however, this kind of regulated system was harmful for the trade of the weaker maritime power – in this case France. France opened its regulated trade to neutral carriers, more specifically the Danes and the Dutch, to minimise such damage. Denmark and the Dutch Republic had small colonies in the West Indies, islands that could be employed as transfer stations for French colonial produce and for the supply of provisions to the French colonies. This was also the basis of the profitable neutral trading in the Danish and Dutch West Indies described in Holger Weiss’s chapter in this volume. The Danish and Dutch colonies in the West Indies fulfilled two different functions. On the one hand, there were islands that produced colonial goods (mainly sugar). For example, the Danish-produced sugar played an important role in the Baltic market.30 On the other hand, there were a number of islands and free ports that specialised in trans-shipment between the different commercial zones of the West Indies: the Spanish, French and British. As Weiss shows, the deliberate policy of the Dutch and Danish authorities was to strengthen this kind of trade. The British were well aware of the nature of this traffic, but it was hard to designate sugar or provisions as contraband of war, as directly usable in warfare. Such a policy would not be in accord with Britain’s treaties with the Dutch Republic and Denmark mentioned above, or with general British policy towards neutral carriers. Instead, the British argued that the neutral trade between the West Indies and Europe was illegal because the same laws and privileges had to be 29   Helfman, ‘Commerce on Trial: Neutral Rights and Private Welfare in the Seven Years War’. 30   Klas Rönnbäck, Commerce and Colonisation Studies of Early Modern Merchant Capitalism in the Atlantic Economy, Göteborg 2009, pp. 103–123.

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applied in peace and wartime. Colonial produce from the French West Indies had to be carried in French bottoms, otherwise it was illegal and could be condemned by British prize courts. This was the import of the Rule of the War of 1756. What was known as the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage also prohibited neutrals from participating in the trade between colonies of belligerent countries and European ports. This doctrine stated that calling in at a neutral port – read Dutch and Danish West Indian islands – did not change the character of a ship’s voyage to or from a belligerent port.31 A ship’s voyage was considered a continuous voyage between two points with a number of stops, rather than a number of independent voyages including both neutral and belligerent ports. The distinctions are important in considering the problem with contraband and effective blockades, and therefore the legality or illegality of seizing neutral ships and cargoes. Hübner’s work from 1759 must be read in the context of Denmark’s West Indian interests. He was arguing that genuinely neutral trade was based on natural law and consequently free from mercantilist peacetime or wartime restrictions. The British Rule of 1756 was not applicable. From this perspective no belligerent, neither British nor French, had a right to limit neutral trade because of their mercantilist policies. We may similarly read Hübner’s arguments for the rights of neutrals as part of the general criticism of mercantilism typical of the mid eighteenth century. Hübner’s political activities were also indirectly related to neutral trade with the West Indies and the British policy there. In his De la saisie des batimens neutres there are frequent references to the Dutch, Danish, British, Spanish and French policies regarding privateering and seizure practices.32 I have not found any references to Swedish neutrality in Hübner’s work, which may seem strange in a book on the rights of neutrals. The cooperation of Sweden and Denmark as neutrals had already started at the end of the seventeenth century. In 1691 Denmark and Sweden signed the ‘Union des Neutres pour la Securite de la Navigation et du Commerce’, which was intended to protect neutral trade and shipping during the Nine Years War (1688–1697).33 And in fact at the beginning of the Seven Years War the two Nordic kingdoms had signed a neutrality convention intended to protect shipping in the Baltic.34 Yet, this Danish–Swedish cooperation was very short: Sweden entered the war in March 1757. It seems that Hübner did not consider this Nordic cooperation relevant with his focus on the situation in the West Indies.

  Helfman, ‘Commerce on Trial: Neutral Rights and Private Welfare in the Seven Years War’, p. 15. 32   On treaties regarding prizes, see Martin Hübner, De la Saisie des batimens neutres (Vol. 2), The Hague 1759, pp. 250–283. 33   Malmborg, Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden, p. 31. 34   Gunner Lind, ‘The Making of the Neutrality Convention of 1756. France and her Scandinavian allies’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 1983, pp. 171–192. 31

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To conclude, there was apparently a gap between the view of neutrality concerning transit trade with the West Indies, and neutrality in the context of the Baltic Sea trade. Swedish writers were not engaged in the discussions about the rights of neutrals during the Seven Years War, because Sweden had a different treaty relationship with Britain from the Dutch and Danes. Moreover, Sweden had no colonies in the West Indies, and consequently no interest in the neutral transfer trade between the French colonies and Europe. In 20 years, the situation would change. Between 1778 and 1780 Hübner’s arguments became highly relevant even in Sweden, and Sweden as a neutral carrier became relevant to the French, British, Dutch and Danish debate. In addition, in 1784 Sweden came into possession of Saint Barthélemy, a West Indian island, which was in a few years to play an important role in the transit trade between the colonies of European powers and the United States in exactly the same way as Holland’s Saint Eustatius and Denmark’s Saint Thomas and Saint Jan. The League of Armed Neutrality and Sweden’s Commercial Interests The seeming lack of interest in Sweden in issues of neutrality must be related to the situation of the country’s commerce and shipping. With no Swedish colony in the West Indies, there was no lucrative transit trade between the West Indies and Sweden. But this does not mean that Sweden was a commercially backward country and that neutrality was irrelevant. Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, Sweden had been pursuing a conscious mercantilist policy to strengthen Sweden’s foreign trade and merchant fleet. Sweden’s commerce and shipping developed in three specific fields that were all related to the state’s situation after 1721. First, Sweden was one of the leading European suppliers of iron and naval stores (tar and pitch). Britain was, to some extent, dependent on supplies of Swedish iron, and some Western European maritime states were dependent on supplies of Swedish tar and pitch. These were strategically important commodities available mainly in the Baltic region. From the Swedish point of view, iron was the major export item in the country’s foreign trade. The significance of the Baltic commodities for eighteenth-century global trade is often neglected, mainly due to the spectacular expansion of Atlantic trade and the history of the colonial empires of France, Britain and Spain. Secondly, since the early 1720s Sweden’s merchant fleet was increasingly engaged in trade and shipping in Southern Europe. Salt supplies from Portugal and the Mediterranean, as well as new markets for Sweden’s export commodities – timber in addition to iron, tar and pitch – were the primary reasons for this engagement. But tramp shipping also became a very important aspect of the trade. An important precondition of the Swedish activity in Southern Europe can be found in peace treaties with the Muslim states in North Africa, the ‘Barbary States’. The first of these treaties was signed in 1729 with Algiers. A combination

Sweden’s Neutrality and the Eighteenth-Century Inter-State System

Figure 9.2

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Den Britsen Leopard tot reden gebracht (The British Leopard Brought to Reason), Dutch engraving from 1780, featuring the League of Armed Neutrality

Source: American Antiquarian Society.

of the treaty system and Sweden’s neutrality in the Mediterranean made Swedish tonnage safe, so there was a demand for it among traders. Consequently, tramp shipping became one of the cornerstones of Swedish trade. In the course of the century, Swedish shipping in Southern Europe expanded from roughly 150 vessels before 1750 to between 200 and 400 vessels after 1750. By the latter part of the century Sweden was one of the most important carriers in the Mediterranean. Swedish ships were hired for voyages between ports in Southern Europe. This tramp shipping also brought Sweden into the Atlantic trade. Swedish vessels could sail on routes between the Mediterranean and American ports.35 Thirdly, since 1731 Sweden had been trading with Asia through its Swedish East India Company (SEIC). Although small in comparison with the Dutch, English and French chartered companies, the Swedish company played an important role in the import of Chinese goods, especially tea. Every year, one or two SEIC vessels left Göteborg, the seat of the company headquarters, for Canton in China. Once again, the Swedish company could exploit the fact that it was protected by Sweden’s neutral flag.   Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce, especially Chapter 5.

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In all three fields, neutrality was also an important competitive advantage for Swedish commerce and shipping. But, Sweden’s neutrality in Southern Europe, in Asia, or as regards the supplies of naval stores, was taken for granted. This ‘neutrality’ was not part of Sweden’s foreign policy in the Baltic arena, which focused primarily on Russia and Denmark. The situation changed from 1778, with the outbreak of war in Europe and, above all, with the changes in Russia’s foreign policy. In the 1770s, neutral trade in the Atlantic closely followed developments in the American War of Independence. As long as the war merely concerned rebels fighting in North America, neutral carriers were not much concerned. The situation changed, however, in 1778, with France’s entry into the war. From the summer of 1778 the diplomatic activity of non-belligerents with maritime interests (the Danes, Dutch, Swedes and Russians) increased. The Dutch and Danish standpoints were similar to those adopted in the Seven Years War. They wanted to profit from their trade as neutrals to and from the West Indies and, naturally, the Danes advanced the arguments put forward by Hübner in 1759. The difference in the situation now was due to Russia’s more active role. Denmark and Russia concluded a long-term treaty of alliance in 1773 and coordinated their foreign policy in a more determined way. In Sweden, Gustav III had reigned since his coup d’état in 1772 and his foreign policy was more determined towards his two neighbours. The relationship with Britain also differed from that of the 1750s. Whereas Denmark had good political connections with Britain, Sweden was allied with France and its relations with Britain were quite tense. Denmark’s most vital neutral trade interest was, again, the transit trade with the West Indies and exports of provisions (grain, etc.). As the core of Denmark’s strategy was to carry French colonial produce (sugar) to Europe, the Danes traded for a belligerent. Sweden’s export trade consisted of iron and naval stores, all commodities directly useful in warfare, and so marked by the British as contraband. These supplies went to France and Spain as well as Britain. Thus the Swedes did not trade for a belligerent but with a belligerent. What was Russia’s interest in neutral trading? Russia had no significant merchant marine and consequently no need to protect its neutral shipping if the warfare did not directly endanger its exports. Russian exports were carried in British and Dutch bottoms. Moreover, Russia and Sweden exported the same commodities (iron and naval stores) and competed therefore on the same markets. The composition of Denmark’s and Sweden’s exports was different, but the Danes perceived the Swedes as potential competitors in tramp shipping. As already pointed out, Sweden had a substantial capacity in vessels employed in the Baltic and North Seas, and in the Mediterranean. Thus, the Danes saw the possibility of cooperation between Russia and Sweden not only as a political but also as a commercial threat.36   Müller, ‘Sweden’s neutral trade under Gustav III’, p. 148.

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In 1778, Count Andreas Peter Bernstorff, Minister for Foreign Affairs and nephew of Martin Hübner’s former patron, proposed cooperation with neutral Russia. The outline of this proposal was influenced by Hübner’s work. Aage Friis, the Danish biographer of the Bernstorff family, suggested that the document sent, in 1778, to St Petersburg was indeed a copy of Hübner’s proposed British–Danish convention of 1762.37 However, no agreement between Denmark and Russia was reached at that time and the Nordic powers each continued to pursue their own policies until 1780. In February 1780 the Russian Empress Catherine the Great issued her proclamation of Armed Neutrality.38 The proclamation itself was a reaction to the violation of neutral Russian shipping in the Mediterranean by Spain. The Empress stated that Russia could no longer accept the violation of its neutral trade, and she ordered her fleet to protect Russian shipping. Moreover, she suggested that the courts all around Europe adhere to her, or more precisely Berntorff’s, principles on neutral shipping. The five principles were: (1) the right of neutral ships to navigate freely between belligerents’ ports and coasts; (2) the commodities of belligerents on board neutral ships were free and legal, with the exception of war contraband; (3) the definition of war contraband should be explicit and Britain should not include any other commodities in its definition than France did; (4) neutrals should respect blockade of a belligerent’s coast only if the blockade was effective; (5) the principles cited should be made public and serve as guidance for all privateers. At first glance these five principles may seem remote from Pufendorf’s, Hübner’s or Galiani’s writings on natural law and the sociability of commerce. But they did indeed promote parallel systems of belligerent and neutral commerce. Neutrality in this new context was understood as an enduring feature of inter-state relations, not as a paragraph in a bilateral treaty between great powers and their clients that could be applied in war – as the issue was perceived by the British. In relation to the British Rule of the War of 1756, the principles propounded by the League stated that Britain had no right to search or seize vessels or cargoes that were not contraband. And the principles required a clear definition of contraband.   ‘Det er ikke helt udredet, hvilken Brug A P Bernstorff gjorde af Materialet, men den hübnerske Formulering genfindes paa vasentlige Punkter i de beroemde Udkast fran 1778, der indgik i Neutralitetserklaeringen af 9. Marts 1780’, in Friis, Berstorfferne og Danmark, p. 129. 38   Isabel De Madariaga, Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780. Sir James Harris’s Mission to St. Petersburg during the American Revolution, New Haven 1962, is still the best study of the League of Armed Neutrality, although written primarily from the Great Powers’ (Russia and Britain) perspectives. For the Danish perspective, see especially Ole Feldbæk, Dansk neutralitetspolitik under krigen 1778–1783. Studier i regeringens prioritering af politiske og økonomiske interesser, Copenhagen 1971, and Feldbæk’s other works; for the Swedish perspective, see Zachrisson, Sveriges underhandlingar om beväpnad neutralitet, and Leos Müller, ‘The League of Armed Neutrality’. in Donald Stoker, Kenneth J. Hagan, Michael T. McMaster (eds), Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach, Routledge 2009, pp. 202–220. 37

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Also, the idea of asking other powers to adhere to the principles and defend them jointly, which Catherine suggested, was revolutionary – or perhaps inexplicable from the standpoint of realpolitik. This makes it easy to understand why courts all over Europe were surprised and hesitated to respond to Catherine the Great. This also explains why the declaration was perceived so differently by the European public – enthusiastically – and by politicians – with hesitation and suspicion. The declaration was so surprising that at first British politicians saw it as an expression of anti-French policy. Catherine the Great was reacting to Spanish violation of neutral shipping in the Mediterranean, and Spain was France’s ally. Yet soon the true anti-British stance became apparent.39 During 1780 the declaration was adhered to by the Danes and Swedes, and plans for a joint fleet were initiated. In 1781–1783 the League was formally joined by Prussia, Austria, Portugal and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies as well, although these neutrals did not participate in any armed action by the three northern neutrals. The Dutch, who were planning to join the League and even send a delegation to St Petersburg, were, late in 1780, drawn into the war against Britain – the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. In Paris, John Adams enthusiastically welcomed Catherine’s declaration. He sent a message to Congress that a conference of European neutrals was soon to meet in St Petersburg and the independence of the United States would be recognised. To strengthen the American chances at St Petersburg, Congress appointed young Francis Dana, John Adams’ secretary, as the US envoy to Russia. But Dana’s mission was a failure. As the American historian David M. Griffiths pointed out: Congress displayed a total misunderstanding of the aims of the armed neutrality by proclaiming a “leading and capital point” to be the admission of the United States “as a party to the convention of the neutral maritime powers for maintaining the freedom of commerce”. This regulation in which the Empress is deeply interested, and from which she has derived so much glory, will open the way for your [Francis Dana’s] favourable reception …40

The League was welcomed with similar enthusiasm by European intellectuals. The reaction of Ferdinando Galiani in Naples confirms this. He published his book two years later and he dedicated it to Catherine the Great, whom he perceived as an architect of a new world order.

  There is a lengthy discussion of Catherine the Great’s true motives for the proclamation in De Madariaga, Britain, Russia, and the Armed Neutrality of 1780. See also John Coffey Hildt, Early Diplomatic Negotiations of the United States with Russia, 1906. 40   David M. Griffiths, ‘American Commercial Diplomacy in Russia, 1780 to 1783’, The William and Mary Quarterly, July, 1970/3, p. 383. 39

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Conclusions Of the two possible views of neutrality that I discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the League of Armed Neutrality was a case exemplifying the possibility of an alternative inter-state order, an order that was not dominated by anarchy and hegemonic struggle but by sociability, peace and trade. Yet, looking at the foreign policy of Gustav III, realpolitik dominated both foreign and commercial strategies. Gustav III signed the treaty with Russia and Denmark because it strengthened his position in Northern Europe, and could possibly give him an opportunity to play a great power role – for a while. As soon as the War of American Independence was over and the League of Armed Neutrality dissolved, he began to prepare for war against Denmark. Nevertheless, the legacy of the League of Armed Neutrality survived the end of the War of American Independence. In 1800, Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Prussia joined the Second League of Armed Neutrality, which was intended to protect neutrals’ shipping against revolutionary France and Britain. Britain reacted immediately and sent a fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson to the Baltic Sea. The powerful reaction of Britain indicates the significance actually ascribed by British policy makers to this League. After Nelson’s attack on Copenhagen in 1801 and Denmark’s armistice, the second League quickly failed. The Russian Emperor Paul I was assassinated and so the Swedish navy did not need to engage with Nelson’s fleet. The League was dissolved. In spite of this failure, neutrality became an accepted foreign policy strategy for small states. The United States was quick to proclaim its neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, with the Neutrality Act following in 1794. The experience of the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars made neutrality an accepted standpoint in the relatively peaceful nineteenth century. Ove Bring, the Swedish historian of international law, marks out 1907, the year of the Second Hague Conference, as the zenith of neutrality.41 For a hundred years many states adhered to the principles of neutrality, which was recognised as a perfectly legitimate and moral standpoint in inter-state relations. Obviously, the situation changed during the twentieth century. After the experiences of two world wars and the foundation of the United Nations, neutrality once again became a contested standpoint.

  Bring, Neutralitetens uppgång och fall, p. 15.

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COLOUR Colour could be felt, according to Denis Diderot in his An essay on Blindness. Some exceptional blind people found fabrics pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the colour only the sighted could see. One blind girl recognised a woman’s hair ribbon as pink – Diderot noted that she so easily could have mistaken it for red. A blind man could touch fabrics and distinguish between all kinds of colour, as though for him each nuance had a texture only he, with his highly trained finger sensation, could detect and make sense of: ‘made a new vocabulary to himself, by substituting tangible for visible differences, and giving them the same names; so that green with him may mean something pleasing or soft to the touch, and red something displeasing or rough’. Colour and its textures in Diderot’s mind constituted a language which could be learnt even by those who did not see how rays of light reflected on a surface and gave off colour. For those who could see, as Diderot infers, colour was a language that was meant to be read. Brightness and colourfulness was meant to be associated with wealth and status in early-modern Europe. Colour was one of the elements of a normative social idiom. It was also an important component in identifying individuals. Not just the colour of clothing made up the compound of individual distinction, but the shade of their skin tone and the colour of their hair and eyes. As Europeans came into more frequent contact with other continents, and with the many textiles and dyestuffs that traversed the seas, colour as a sign of social status was less easy to interpret, according to pamphlet authors and authorities. At the same time, the understanding of skin colour underwent a shift in Europe and America, turning from the humoural scale to categories of race. Colour lay at the heart of a changing globalised epistemology of individuality and social and legal status in the eighteenth century. This article will engage with the sartorial and bodily legibility of runaways in Sweden in comparison with highly commercialised parts of early America. The issue is first, how colour functioned within an idiom of recognisability, and secondly, the cultural impact of commercialisation and globalisation in the Swedish realm. What logics governed the use of colour to identify people and what does this say about Sweden’s position within a globalising world?

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Chapter 10

Runaway Colours: Recognisability and Categorisation in Sweden and Early America, 1750–1820 Karin Sennefelt

Scholars often point to the ideological and practical importance of appearance in the early-modern period. Corporativism, sumptuary laws and limited wealth all contributed to social legibility. Individuals could be ‘read’ by others. Sartorial codes have, in this instance, been compared to language. It can be learnt like an idiom, individuals can be bilingual and have the ability to read several different codes of how others want to portray themselves. Sartorial code can also be switched and manipulated. Codes from one context can be used in another, leading to purposeful or embarrassing misreading. This instrumental view of sign reading presupposes that the signs were legible by others. Two factors that greatly complicated social sign reading in the early-modern period were globalisation and commercialisation. Whether or not we regard early-modern clothing regimes as easily legible or not, by the eighteenth century sartorial idiom was apparently undergoing great change all over the West. At the same time, a greater degree of anonymity in certain parts of the world fostered a need for the ability to read new and changing sartorial and bodily signs. Cultures and ethnicities were confronted with each other in the American continent, rendering European apparel illegible or even frightening to Native Americans and enslaved Africans, creating hybrid forms of dress.1 To add to this confusion,   Daniel Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 1994); Norbert Elias, Civilisationsteori. Sedernas historia, trans. Berit Skogsberg (Stockholm, 1989); Sten Carlsson, Ståndssamhälle och ståndspersoner 1700– 1865: Studier rörande det svenska ståndssamhällets upplösning (Lund, 1973); Kaarlo Wirilander, Herrskapsfolk: Ståndspersoner i Finland 1721–1870, trans. Eva Stenius (Stockholm, 1982); Carlo Marco Belfanti and Fabio Giusberti, ‘Clothing and Social Inequality in Early Modern Europe: Introductory Remarks’, Continuity and Change 15, No. 3 (2000), 359–65; Robert Ross, Clothing: A Global History: Or, The Imperialists’ New Clothes (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 7, 24; Janet Moore Lindman and Michele Lise Tarter, ‘The earthly frame, a minute fabrick, a Centre of Wonders’, in A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America (Ithaca, 2001), p. 3. For a criticism of apparent legibility, see John Styles, The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, 2007), p. 181. 1

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consumption patterns of clothes also altered dramatically in Europe. New fabrics, colours and patterns were worn by the lower orders in France, England and early America. In Sweden, engaged debates on unsuitable consumption reveal that many perceived society to be changing there as well.2 Stable social boundaries seemed to be constantly jumped by ambitious pretenders to social status, and sumptuary laws broken without hesitation. The conception of race has been similarly described as undergoing a transformation. The eighteenth century was a time of fluctuating categorisation of people where climate and complexion were being eclipsed by the category of race. Although this was part of a transition into essentialism and stability of how people were distinguished, the eighteenth century itself showed a ‘transitional multiplicity and confusion’ when it came to race.3 Understanding the idioms of clothing and bodies in a globalising world meant having to reconcile complete polarities in almost every sphere of life. Identities could be multivalent and ambivalent.4 In the eighteenth century, it seems as though reading and distinguishing among people along common lines was becoming increasingly difficult. The subject of this chapter is the sartorial and bodily legibility of runaways in Sweden, comparing them with the highly commercialised parts of early America. I intend to do this by looking at colour: the colours of skin, complexion and clothing. Thinking about colour was acutely important in the West by the late eighteenth century, in connection with both the body and clothing regimes. Colour lay at the very core of racial thinking, but it was also the basis of ancient thinking about individuality and personhood through complexions and humours. Colour and patterns on fabrics could reveal social ambition or a person’s part in a globalized economy. The question here is how colour functioned within an idiom of recognisability. The purpose is not so much to measure the degree of merchant capitalism in Sweden, as it is to measure the cultural impact of commercialisation and globalisation in the Swedish realm. What logics governed the use of colour to identify people and what does this say about Sweden’s position within a globalising world?   See, e.g., Karin Hassan Jansson’s chapter in this book.   Londa Schiebinger, ‘The Anatomy of Difference: Race and Sex in Eighteenth-

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Century Science’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 23, No. 4 (July 1, 1990), pp. 387–405; Dror Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven, 2004), p. 87; Gwenda Morgan and Peter Rushton, ‘Visible Bodies: Power, Subordination and Identity in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World’, Journal of Social History 39, No. 1 (2005), 42; Vanita Seth, Europe’s Indians: Producing Racial Difference, 1500–1900 (Durham, NC, 2010). 4   Greg Dening, ‘Introduction: In Search of a Metaphor’, in Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on Personal Identity in Early America, Ronald Hoffman, Mechal Sobel and Fredrika J. Teute (eds) (Chapel Hill, 1997), p. 1; Jonathan Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”: Runaway Ads and the Appearance of Unfree Laborers in America, 1750– 1800’, Journal of American History 78, No. 1 (1991), pp. 126–129.

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To summarise previous research, the eighteenth century can, on a global scale, be seen as a period in which culture underwent a shift in colour regimes both in relation to skin and complexion, and in clothing. This had to do with a globalising world and with the forces of commercialisation of both wares and human beings. For colour to function as part of recognisability and categorisation, it must be related to a larger framework, a framework that can be reached though comparison between cultures with different economic, social and religious contexts in the same period of transition. Thereby, the principles for making sense of human variation can be gleaned. The comparison is made with the mid-Atlantic region for the sake of contrasting extremes. Merchant capitalism in the mid-Atlantic had a highly mobile labour force in which cultures became enmeshed and hybridised. According to David Waldstreicher, ‘slaves and other working people created a vernacular cosmopolitanism’ that served both runaways and confidence men particularly well.5 In this contrast it can be explored whether Swedish runaways might make use of their culture in a similar way. Recognisability and social categorisation is undoubtedly part of the story of a globalising world. It was precisely the fluctuating social and economic situation which opened doors to limited forms of freedom for groups such as slaves, indentured servants and the working poor who might not otherwise have the opportunities to shape their own lives. We should not ignore that the globalisation of identity and identifiers was inevitably part of European conquest and exploitation of other parts of the world. It was possible to take on the signs of another group, but those who came to change their cultural codes in the long run were conquered and exploited peoples, not Europeans. Identity in the age of globalisation, therefore, is not only a history of liminality, flexibility and agency. It is also a process towards uniformity. Aspects of European culture were adopted and put to use by the colonised. In many cases, such as for slaves in the Americas, correct European-style clothing was imposed rather than chosen. Often, it did not have to come to outright force: over the centuries since Europeans first started out into the world, European dress has also become adopted, adapted and internalised all over the world. But European dress could also be used in subversive ways, in order to break with European perceptions of how a slave, indentured servant or poor person should be read.6

  David Waldstreicher, ‘Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic’, The William and Mary Quarterly 56, No. 2, Third Series (April 1999), pp. 246, 249. 6   Nancy Shoemaker, ‘How Indians Got to be Red’, The American Historical Review 102, No. 3 (June 1, 1997), p. 637; Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 149–156; Shane White and Graham White, ‘Slave Clothing and African-American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Past & Present, No. 148 (August 1995), pp. 158, 164; C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Oxford, 2004), pp. 12–17; Ross, Clothing: A Global History, pp. 3–4. 5

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Following Daniel Roche, dress in early-modern Europe has been considered colourless and dull before commercialisation in the eighteenth century. Commercialisation brought, in Roche’s words, ‘a new visual order […] the eye became keener, the passing show more mobile […] a feeling for adornment was acquired by all’.7 This abundance of colour only lasted a short while. By the early nineteenth century, men’s garments became more demure and dark.8 Ulinka Rublack has recently refuted conclusions about the centuries preceding the eighteenth. Dress in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe was neither drab and colourless, she posits, nor rigidly conformed to social rank. Rather, reds, blues, greens, stripes and patterns abounded in the early sixteenth century. As time passed, colours became paler and subtler but did not lose their vibrancy altogether. Historians’ definitions of colourlessness, however, are geared towards supporting their own arguments: Jan de Vries mentions dark green and blue, together with black and brown, as parts of a drab early-modern sartorial palette. Rublack, as well as Roche, considers blue and green part of the vibrancy of both sixteenth- and seventeenth-century and late eighteenth-century colour schemes.9 The impression of vibrancy or drabness that clothes make is not only down to colour, but also other visual effects such as decoration and assembly. Sartorial idiom was not the only colour-based aspect of identifying individuals in the eighteenth century, and we might assume that it was of shrinking importance. The peoples of colonial America (as well as in other colonial settings) were at the forefront of the shifting perceptions of race, gender and class around 1800. In a rapidly globalising world, the language of difference began to change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Humoural thinking survived longer in some places than others. Within England, humoural thinking dominated until the mid eighteenth century, when ‘black’ began to be used as a racial category for Africans. White skin remained a social, rather than a racial distinction.10 In the British Empire, distinction along the lines of religion, people and nation became less common, whereas definition along colour lines was increasingly employed. First was the concept of ‘black’, which in the seventeenth century was put in opposition to ‘Christian’. ‘Black’ at that point connoted infidel or heathen. It was not until the eighteenth century that ‘white’ came to supplant ‘Christian’ as the antithesis of ‘black’. The use of ‘white’ as a racial category began in America, in Barbados 7   Daniel Roche, The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the 18th Century (Leamington Spa, 1987), pp. 192–193. 8   Ross, Clothing, pp. 35–36, 59. 9   Roche, The People of Paris, pp. 190–194; Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge, 2008), p. 135; Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford, 2010), pp. 252, 262–263 and passim. 10   Mark S. Dawson, ‘First Impressions: Newspaper Advertisements and Early Modern English Body Imaging, 1651–1750’, The Journal of British Studies 50, No. 2 (2011), pp. 304–305.

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in the mid seventeenth century, and moved slowly north. Only in the 1730s had ‘white’ replaced ‘Christian’ as a self-descriptive category of Europeans in New York. Research on racism in America has shown a gradual emergence of race as a category: Christian and pagan were supplanted by first ‘black’, then came the category ‘red’, and finally ‘white’. The racial colour scheme employed today was not established until the Enlightenment and early nineteenth century. Significantly, the creation of these categories in the eighteenth century was accompanied by the legitimisation of expropriation of land and labour from others. The two processes are two sides of the same coin.11 The eighteenth-century shift in the meaning of colours, therefore, is put at the centre of this study in order to uncover signs of changing colour regimes in Sweden. The intensity of the Atlantic cultural shift begs the question whether Scandinavian identities were under transformation at roughly the same time, however weak the pressures of cultural and economic processes that fundamentally shook America were upon Swedes in comparison. This field, however, has only barely been touched on.12 This study deals with advertisements for runaways in Sweden and early America between 1750 and 1820. While runaway ads may seem a problematic genre, it is an important source for the dress and perception of the lower orders. It has, to my knowledge, rarely been used in Swedish historical research at all. Whereas social difference was described greatly in racial terms in eighteenthcentury America, Swedish society was dominated by estate differentiation. Here, colour played an important part as well. We know very little about how much this basis of social distinction was affected by increasing globalisation in the second half of the century. We do know, for instance, that Sweden was becoming more commercialised in general, and that fabrics like cotton were becoming more widespread within society. How much this actually altered the social colour palette is less well researched. This study is a beginning towards such a history. From extensive previous research into American runaway ads we have learnt that runaway slaves were not necessarily distinguishable from others of the lowest orders of society. This means, of course, that to casual observers a runaway might not differentiate him or herself from slaves or indentured servants temporarily on leave from their master or on their own doing their master’s business, or from free African Americans. In fact, large congregations of other African Americans in the northern colonies could camouflage a runaway. White and Native American runaways could similarly blend easily into the background of other labouring

11   Shoemaker, ‘How Indians Got to be Red’, pp. 625, 631; Valentin Groebner, Who Are You?: Identification, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe (Brooklyn NY, 2007), p. 136; Carl H. Nightingale, ‘Before Race Mattered: Geographies of the Color Line in Early Colonial Madras and New York’, The American Historical Review 113, No. 1 (February 1, 2008), p. 60. 12   Allan Pred, The Past is not Dead: Facts, Fictions, and Enduring Racial Stereotypes (Minneapolis, 2004), pp. 8–11, 108.

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poor. Only rarely did runaways who were not free wear tell-tale signs of their status, such as iron collars or shackles and chains.13 In America, runaway ads were a genre created by the polite elites, and they therefore reflect social order and power in their descriptions of human beings. When gentlemen and ladies described each other, they usually subordinated visual attributes to character, giving priority to characteristics shown through physical features rather than the physical features themselves. Characteristics were also generally noted in order to underscore gentility rather than recognisability. Runaway ads were, in colonial America, descriptions of property, and in that sense they used the same detail as probate records or inventories in relating individuating details, highlighting the particular.14 Swedish runaway ads were also published by the elites, most often by officers of the state. Descriptions relied on norms established within the military, where mustered men’s physique was summarily described. But this is not to say that ads were always similar. Similarities seem to depend more on author than issuing office. Ads were also written by deserted husbands and wives, duped household heads and earnest parents of lost children. These were not descriptions of property, as in the American case, but they share their engagement with interpreting and mediating distinction and individuality. This study covers Swedish advertisements and articles containing descriptions of 149 people between 1750 and 1820, most of whom had run away or disappeared.15 The texts have either been published in Swedish newspapers or in Royal Ordinances. The selection is based on descriptions of individuals, not types, ideal types or groups. Newspaper articles discussing, for instance, the characteristics of foreign peoples or famous personalities abroad have been omitted, as have descriptions of the royal family taking part in various ceremonies. The geographical limitation is that the individuals described were possibly to be found within the Swedish realm. Out of these 149 individuals, the vast majority (129) were men over 18 years of age. The remaining advertisements sought to find 10 women, 7 boys and 3 girls. Among the men, more than half were soldiers (70 individuals). This is hardly surprising considering the context; advertisements 13   Alan Edward Brown and Graham Russell Hodges, ‘Introduction’, in ‘Pretends to Be Free’: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (New York, 1994), pp. xix, xxi; Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 146, 156; White and White, ‘Slave Clothing and African-American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, pp. 165–166. 14   Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 134, 137. 15   These individuals were found in 110 different ads in Kungl. kungörelser, Inrikes tidningar, Posttidningar, Publique handlingar and Fahlu weckoblad in 1750–1820. I have defined a description as a text which is directed to an audience with the particular purpose of making it possible to distinguish an individual from others. The texts, therefore, must contain more than a person’s name. Examples of genres that have been excluded on these grounds are advertisements seeking to find the heirs of a recently deceased person or inquiries into impediments to marriage.

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were regularly placed for deserters from different companies mustered within the realm. Yet not all soldiers were wanted for desertion; some were sought for stealing or other crimes, and one was sought by a deserted wife who wanted to remarry. The comparison has been made with ads from New York and New Jersey over roughly the same period in order to measure a Swedish colour idiom against a commercialised and globalised context. The American ads, published between 1750 and 1783, contain mention of 125 individuals. Again, the majority, 99, were men, 8 were women, 14 boys and 4 girls. Most were black slaves or indentured servants, a small number were of European or Native American origin.16 The Swedish development will take the forefront, placing the Swedish runaways in relation to this volume’s theme of cosmopolitanism. Skin Colour and Complexion Colour had been an important part of the language of difference since antiquity, but in the eighteenth century it was in the process of changing. There was no easy definition of what a ‘black’ person was in the Middle Ages. Rather, it could refer to nobles and slaves alike. Medieval descriptions of people used the Galenic system as a starting point in fixing the colour of the complexion. Human beings could be described in terms of different ratios of four different qualities: hot, cold, moist and dry. The word complexia in medieval medicine referred to this larger system containing a range of physical attributes – skin colour, temperament, stature, age, sex – and constituted an individual as a type. These were characteristics which were derived from nature, but they could also denote changeable characteristics at the same time, as in the case of illnesses. By the early-modern period, types became more stable, the human body considered increasingly inflexible.17 The system was meant to be readable by almost anyone; even amateurs could, theoretically at least, understand the qualities of an individual at a cursory glance. Skin colours in medieval and early-modern Europe were generally discussed on a scale of white, red and black. A person could then be placed between different extremes, having degrees of redness, whiteness or blackness. Colours were not related to place of origin. When European travellers came to the New World they initially employed the same categories for the peoples they met as they did for themselves. Later, in the eighteenth century, varying systems were used to categorise racial difference.18 Within the Swedish realm, the humoural system was also believed to correspond to social division, according to Kaarlo Wirilander, even though every individual was made up of varying quantities of all humours. The 16   Alan Edward Brown and Graham Russell Hodges (eds), ‘Pretends to Be Free’: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (New York, 1994). 17   Groebner, Who are you?, pp. 118–129. 18   Ibid., pp. 131, 133–134; Morgan and Rushton, ‘Visible Bodies’, pp. 42–44.

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nobility were to a greater degree choleric than other estates, the clergy melancholy and among the lower orders most were phlegmatic. These humours were matched up with skin colours: the nobility would to a greater degree sport light brown complexions. The clergy would have more pale complexions with darker tinges. The palest complexions were found on the lower orders, whose faces were light and colourless, unless they were reddened by drink. The sanguineous were harder to place within the estate system, and the term was often reserved for foppish members of all estates.19 If we look at how the faces of Swedish runaways were described, skin colour, the shape of the face and distinguishing marks in the face were denoted in equal measure.20 Swedish runaway ads conform to humoural thinking when it comes to skin colour. The colours registered form a progression from white to black, via red (Table 10.1). ‘Black’ in Swedish could, in the eighteenth century, refer either to a person with black hair or a person whose origins were in Africa.21 And it is in the former sense we find mentions of black skin in the runaway ads. Jönköping-born soldier Fredrik Bereen’s face was ‘black and long by nature’. The same phrase was used to describe the soldier Johan Lenberg from Stockholm.22 White-coloured faces were found on men from different parts of Sweden in combination with very blond hair. Soldier Jan Andersson who was 20 years old and from Odensvi in Kalmar county, had not only a white-coloured face, but also white hair and eyebrows.23 The colour most commonly found in faces was red. The term used in Swedish is rödlätt which means red coloured, reddish or rosy. Its use might have to do with the fact that red colouring could be a sign of good health.24 Foreign-born persons were divided into the same categories and do not seem to have been seen as of different colours from Swedes. A red-faced man was from Norway, a man whose face was ‘slightly brown’ was from Mecklenburg, and one of the three whose faces were regarded as brown was from Cassel.25 Foreigners were just as likely to have been pale as anyone in Sweden.

  Kaarlo Wirilander, Herrskapsfolk, pp. 33–39.   There are 40 mentions of colour, 46 mentions of the shape of the face, 37 mentions

19 20

of distinguishing marks in the face. 21   Svenska Akademiens ordbok, http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob, ‘svart’. Accessed 18 June 2012. 22   Posttidningar 1771-09-09, 1773-06-07. 23   Inrikes tidningar 1772-07-27, 1791-05-23, Publique handlingar 1776-01-31, Posttidningar 1820-02-20. 24   Svenska Akademiens ordbok, http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob, ‘rödlätt’. Accessed 18 June 2012. 25   Table 10.1.

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Table 10.1

233

Descriptions of skin colour and complexions, on a scale from white to black, Sweden 1750–1820

Description

Total

whitish (vitlätt) pale cast (bleklagt) pale (blek) blond (blont) light cast (ljuslagt) light (ljust) sallow (gulblekt) slightly red (något rött) redish/rosy (rödlätt) slightly brown (något brunt) brownish (brunaktig) brown (brunt) darkly cast (mörklagt) dark (mörkt) black-brown (svartbrunt) black (svart)

7 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 10* 1** 1 3*** 2 3 1 2

Total

40

Note: * One man from Finland, one man from Norway; ** Man born in Mecklenburg; *** One man from Cassel. Source: Kungl. kungörelser, Inrikes tidningar, Posttidningar, Publique handlingar, Fahlu weckoblad 1750–1820.

According to Valentin Groebner, scars and other marks on the skin became the legal paradigm of identification by the late fifteenth century because they were viewed as memories inscribed on a person and therefore could not function as generalised categories.26 Scars and other marks were not unimportant in Sweden, though their weight as distinguishers seems light in comparison to American examples. The distinguishing marks found on Swedish runaways, however, were mostly pockmarks – a quality that was hardly individualising. One man was described as having a beautiful face, one woman as being ugly and very pockmarked. One man had dark lines in his face, and two individuals had distinguishing scars – a girl had a white pea-sized scar on her chin, and a man a scar across his nose. Other than these examples, scarring played a minor part in identification within the Swedish realm – it was not a social distinguisher, or perhaps a social reality, in the same manner as in America.   Groebner, Who are you?, p. 112.

26

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A point can also be made about the inherent nature of the descriptions of faces. Face shapes are more often than not given the suffix -lagd (as in trindlagd, långlagd or magerlagd) which means that the shape was given by nature (round by nature, long by nature, thin by nature). This suffix was more seldom used in descriptions of colour. Colour, then, was something which might fluctuate. It might change with the health of a person or their dietary intake, whereas face shapes did not. This might lead us to conclude that the skin colours of Swedish runaways were understood in line with humoural theory as parts of a series of qualities in a person which needed to be viewed together to make up a certain type of person. In comparison, face shapes were only rarely mentioned in the American ads. Instead, focus was put upon, in decreasing order, race and ethnicity, distinguishing features, skin colour and, finally, face shapes.27 American ads do mention skin colour as well, though the epistemology behind it is rather different from the Swedish case. Skin colour often goes without mentioning, but there are two or more systems at play at once. The category of ‘Negro’ did not necessarily mean a black person, but it was a link to servitude or slavery. This increasing conflation of skin colour with social and economic standing was well under way in the eighteenth century, but had not yet fully integrated culture and biology into fullfledged racism.28 As Table 10.2 shows, ‘Negro’ was by far the most commonly used term to describe a runaway, and this has to do with the term’s connotations to slavery. Asking for the whereabouts of a ‘Negro fellow’ also denoted the master’s rights to the runaway’s body and labour – it was a marker which did not have to invoke the term ‘slave’ itself. In consequence, the second most common category used was ‘mulatto’. Race and ethnicity were categories that superseded attempts to portray specific and individual colour. Very seldom are we left without any indication of a person’s skin colour in the American case, although we might assume it as in the case of the ‘Negro Man’ Mark and his wife Jenny, the wife’s colour in all likelihood being black as well.29 Ethnicity and modern conceptions of race were given as though they formed stable categories, but these general categories were complemented by a selection of colours which, as they did in Sweden, ranged from white to black. This, however, does not mean that a humoural epistemology underlay understandings of skin colours in America as well. Unsurprisingly, the most common colour used to describe runaway slaves and indentured servants is ‘black’. Notably, though, black was used here both as a racial category, and as a description of colour. There was a range of blackness from ‘not very black’, ‘a full black’, to ‘very black’ and, finally, ‘remarkably black’ and ‘as black as any in the land’.30 Only rarely did descriptions 27   There are 118 mentions of race or ethnicity, 57 mentions of distinguishing marks in the face or body, 38 mentions of colour, 9 mentions of the form of the face. 28   Waldstreicher, ‘Reading the Runaways’, pp. 246, 257–258; Morgan and Rushton, ‘Visible Bodies’, 42–50. 29   Brown and Hodges, ‘Pretends to Be Free’, nos 380, 531, 625. 30   Ibid., nos 85, 109, 341, 346, 352, 565.

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of ‘Negro’ men, women and children on the run use ranges of browns to denote differences in skin colours to ensure recognisability. Instead, it was the racially laden blackness that had to be nuanced. The alternative, which most often was used about persons also described as ‘mulattos’, was yellow. The separation of race and colour as it is presented in Tables 10.2 and 10.3 is academic. When people attempted to describe an individual in eighteenth-century New York and New Jersey, the malleability of race, nationality, ethnicity and humoural categories led to hybrid descriptions. Race, servitude and colour often converged, denoting the slave Caesar as both a ‘Negro man’ and a ‘black Fellow’.31 Some advertisers took pains to cover all types of category, placing ‘Negro Fellow’ together with ‘yellow Complexion’ and ‘mixed Breed’ in an attempt to accurately describe the runaway slave Adonia in 1762.32 The colour red was not always used as the racial stereotype for American Indians. Nancy Shoemaker elucidates the process how American Indians were defined as ‘red’ by the late eighteenth century – a process they were very much part of themselves. The colour red was in part a response to a European drive to define ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness’, but the particular colour was chosen by Indians themselves. Their skin colour was most often described as ‘tawny’ by Europeans. Red and white were complementary colours in Indian culture, standing for war and activity and peace and age respectively, and seem to have been part of a diplomatic and political discourse, rather than primarily an important part in describing individuals.33 This also explains the lack of the colour red in the American case. In the sample here, ‘red’ is never used to describe the complexions or skin colours of runaway slaves and indentured servants, despite several mentions of Native Americans. The range of colours in the American ads seems not to comply with a humoural model. Instead, we have variations on black and yellow. The composite of a personal identity lay not in the assembly of humoural signs, but on race and markings on the body. In conclusion, we might question that the humoural system functioned in Sweden as a completely generalising system, creating only types and not individuals. This system relied on a group of variables where complexion was only one. Also, the labouring poor in Sweden were apparently not easily put in humoural types that corresponded to perceptions of the estates. Whitish faces were as common as the reddish and brownish colours that Wirilander finds were indicative of higher standing. Within the frame of humoural thinking, social categorisation had been broken up. The social gaze was not so strong that all members of the lower estates were categorised in the same manner. Instead, they display the full range of human variety that the humoural system could offer.

  Ibid., no. 373.   Ibid., no. 211. 33   Shoemaker, ‘How Indians Got to be Red’, pp. 629–630, 633, 641. 31 32

236

Table 10.2

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Descriptions of race and ethnicity in New York and New Jersey, 1750–1783

Description

Total

Negro man/fellow/lad/wench/girl Mulatto man/fellow/lad/wench/girl/slave Spanish Negro man Irish/born in Ireland Servant man Indian/Indian look Creole Negro fellow Spanish Indian Mixed breed

90 16 3 2 2 2 1 1 1

Total

118

Source: G.R. Hodges and A.E. Brown (eds), ‘Pretends to Be Free’: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey, New York and London, 1994.

Table 10.3

Descriptions of skin colour and complexions in New York and New Jersey, 1750–1783

Description white pale or tawny/sallow complexion yellow(ish) colour/complexion yellow cast mulatto coloured brownish cast not very black partly black black complexion/man/fellow full black very black (complexion) remarkably black almost as black as any in the land Total

Total 1 2 13 1 1 1 2 1 6 1 7 1 1

= 19

38

Source: G.R. Hodges and A.E. Brown (eds), ‘Pretends to Be Free’: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey, New York and London, 1994.

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Colours of Clothing The colour of clothing was significant and communicated meanings. These could correspond to traditional European understandings or were more fluctuating, only understandable in the social context in which they were worn. The significance of colour beyond the uppermost echelons of society is as yet largely unknown to us. Traditionally, black was the colour of constancy and loyalty because it could not be dyed another colour. Red signified power for men and was used by Catholic cardinals, royalty and, indeed, Martin Luther.34 Previous research in the Nordic countries has placed colour of clothing at the forefront of social recognisability. Colour, in Wirilander’s words, was ‘constantly decisive for an individual’s social worth’. Peasants wore grey, the clergy black and the nobility red. Whereas colour schemes for the nobility were, of course, much wider in reality than in social norms, it seems as though the Nordic peasantry in fact wore the grey of rough wool (vadmal). Together with this three-tiered formulaic system, the colour blue bore particular meaning in Sweden. This was, according to Wirilander, the colour of distinction and esteem, and had higher prestige than green or grey. Blue was the equivalent of red in Denmark, green in Russia and white in Saxony. It was the colour of the Crown and the military; so distinctive, according to eighteenthcentury author Olof von Dalin, that you only had to mention ‘the Blue’.35 For many reasons, the apparel of runaways takes up most of the space in advertisements. Most people had limited amounts of clothing, and clothing was always noticed in both colonial American and European culture.36 Clothing was part of the descriptions of 84.6 per cent of the individuals, as compared to skin colour in only 27 per cent. In some cases, such as with the 17-year-old servant Carl Alerander, his master listed several different types of clothing he might have on: a grey woollen cloak with white metal buttons, a black silk waistcoat, brown trousers, boots and a round hat, or perhaps a green woollen cloak with yellow metal buttons and bold braiding on the collar, worn over white clothes.37 The opportunity to change clothes was quite small for the majority. While American fugitives were often considered ‘artful’ and capable of disguise – they were expected to change their names, use fake documents, or perhaps change their costumes – the ads often presupposed that the runaways would keep their garments and that clothing was a fixity. This had to do with the problems of acquiring new clothing, which was

  Rublack, Dressing Up, pp. 94–98, 120, 137; Kekke Stadin, Maktens män bär rött: Historiska studier av manlighet, manligt framträdande och kläder (Stockholm, 2010). 35   Olof Dalin, ‘Försök til Universal-Lexicon’, Vf 77, Kungliga biblioteket, Stockholm; Wirilander, Herrskapsfolk, p. 43. Cf. Peter Henningsen, I sansernes vold: Bondekultur og kultursammenstød in enevældens Danmark, Vol. 1 (Auning; København: Landbohistorisk Selskab; Københavns Stadsarkiv, 2006), pp. 340–341. 36   Cf. Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, p. 149. 37   Posttidningar 1805-09-26. 34

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expensive and in short supply among their peers.38 This also becomes clear in Sweden when we compare the many poor runaways with the odd runaway of better means. Whereas the servant Antoine Zenthner’s clothing is recorded in detail, his fugitive master’s is not. Instead, the ad goes into detail about the master’s corporeal characteristics – the shape of his nose, his lovely teeth, his well-proportioned legs and feet – and his moveable property, specifically the colouring of his carriage, all of which was not so easily changed.39 The colour palettes of Swedish and early American runaway clothing is strikingly similar, despite the quite different social and economic conditions in these societies. This partly has to do with the approach chosen here – had the investigation gone into which fabrics vestments were made of, the commercialisation of New York and New Jersey would be quite evident, with its calicoes and cottons, versus the varieties of wool used in Sweden. There are some differences however. First, it should be noted that in 31 per cent and 26 per cent of cases in the American and Swedish samples respectively, there is no mention of colour at all when garments are recorded. This partly has to do with fabrics. Fabrics themselves sometimes implied particular colours. Most Swedish leather breeches were yellow, military coats were more often than not blue. A Swede in ‘sailor’s clothes’ was most probably clad in white.40 In Sweden, the most common colours mentioned were black (20 per cent), blue (18.3 per cent), white (16.9 per cent) and grey (15 per cent). Together, these colours previously described as essential in the early-modern colour palette, constitute over 70 per cent of all colours mentioned. Notably, brown and green, which might also be sorted among the ‘colourless’, form a very small proportion of colour in clothes (3.6 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively). Brighter colours such as red (3.3 per cent) and yellow (6.9 per cent), together with stripes (6.7 per cent) were just as or more common than green and brown. When it comes to the dominance of black and white, an inquiry into which clothes items they were used for show that these were colours for very specific pieces of clothing. The prominence of white   Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 156–157; Brown and Hodges, ‘Introduction’, p. xxxi. 39   Inrikes tidningar 1791-07-18; Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 134, 137. 40   Methodologically, I have counted every mention of every colour and pattern and have not tried to derive a primary colour for a particular clothes item. That means that when a red and white striped shirt is mentioned, it has been recorded under red, white and striped. A green striped shirt is recorded under green and striped. The objective has been to give a visual impression of the colour schemes in both cases. In total, I have recorded 644 different notes on clothing in Sweden between 1750 and 1820, and 562 notes in New York and New Jersey between 1750 and 1783. The methods mean that results are not completely comparable with those of Daniel Roche in The People of Paris, who only counts one colour per item and separates patterns from solids: see Table 6.4 on p. 191. This means, for instance, that pattern cannot be valued here as a marker of commercialisation as Roche does, only colour. 38

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almost entirely has to do with the mention of stockings. Stockings in Sweden were generally of white wool; there is one mention of cotton stockings, but these were apparently old and worn.41 In England, in comparison, white stockings were signs of wealth, so much so that they were deemed the determinant sign separating rich from poor until the mid eighteenth century, when they also became more desirable among the lower ranks.42 Black, on the other hand, completely dominated the colour of men’s hats in Sweden. No hats were of any other specified colour, and it is likely that the 16 hats mentioned without naming the colour were also black. Blue dominated men’s coats, cloaks and provincial jackets (tröja), with grey the second most common choice for these garments. The results here indicate that blue was not as distinctively a colour of the military as we might be have thought, because it also dominates when soldiers are removed from the sample. As the advertisements often show, soldiers were not always clad in blue. Only a small number seem to have left in full uniform – it is likely they had never received a full uniform when they were mustered. Instead, parts of uniforms that had been inherited from a predecessor were pieced together with their newer garments, or they wore their own clothes while on the run. Civilian men, on the other hand, could be completely clad in blue, from their coat down to their stockings. Uniform and occupational dress is often implied in the case of soldiers, sailors and guards. But some other occupational costumes are also given and readers are meant to understand what this dress might contain. This was the case, for instance, for the soldier in the Royal Life Guard Lars Bowall, who was not wearing uniform when he deserted, but ‘torn hairdresser’s clothes’.43 Breeches were most likely to be black, blue or yellow. In men’s clothing, waistcoats showed the most variation in colour and pattern. We encounter them, for instance, as striped, in grey wool or green with a black and white flame pattern.44 And there were garments that did stand out, pointing to a world of colours beyond the blues and greys of homespun fabrics: pale yellow, sea green, capuciner red, ash grey and couleur de loup (wolf coloured) were among the shades that observant advertisers had noted.45 Waistcoats, together with shoe buckles or buttons and laced hats were the foremost means of decorating dress among the lower orders. Decorations and adornments on clothing, that is tassels, ribbons, braids, lace and buttons, were relatively common among the lower orders in Sweden. Decoration was important in clothing for the less well off as well as the wealthy. Ribbons and trimmings of different sorts were a means of adding pattern and decoration for a relatively     43   44   41 42

03-29.

Inrikes tidningar 1783-09-04. John Styles, The Dress of the People, pp. 195–198. Posttidningar 1773-05-17, Inrikes tidningar 1782-01-31, 1786-12-04. Inrikes tidningar 1783-09-04, Posttidningar 1783-12-29, Kungl. kungörelser 1787-

  Inrikes tidningar 1771-03-21, Kungl. kungörelser 1776-11-29, 1787-09-07.

45

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low cost for those who could not afford exclusive fabrics.46 Buttons on coats and buckles on shoes bore a particular significance when it came to sizing up a person’s social status. When they were made of expensive materials such as brass, silver or steel, or were particularly large, they were noted meticulously in Sweden. The fastenings of clothing were signs of wealth and status. Some could only afford bone or cloth-covered buttons. Others’ poverty was clearly on display through their lack of buttons altogether, and it was duly noted that their clothing and shoes were tied together with straps.47 Women and girls only made up 8.7 per cent of the runaways in ads in Sweden, and with a population of 13 it is impossible for this study to draw any general conclusions based on gender. It is notable that women’s clothing is described in a detail similar to that of men.48 We know that when the goldsmith’s wife Anna Blomberg left her husband, she wore an old grey striped woollen dress, a red dotted scarf and a yellow dotted headscarf. The sailor’s wife Catharina Rosenberg wore an old black rose-patterned skirt when she left her master’s service, together with stockings and an old blue cardigan.49 We also are informed that the 11-yearold boy Samuel Bernhard Hulström wore a woman’s jacket over some plain linen underclothes when he ran away from home with his older sister in 1820. His sister Maria Helena, 14, wore grey and green in her skirt and jacket. Sometimes we are even informed about the clothing preferences of the runaway. Maidservant Anna Maria Arfwidsson liked to wear her green camel wool jacket on weekdays, together with a green skirt or perhaps a grey striped wool skirt. On Sundays she tended to put on a blue and red dress and a matching cap of bordaloux (a fine French linen or silk fabric).50 Women’s clothing was not as uniform as that of civilian men: in this small sample we encounter a greater use of pattern, especially in skirts, which were often striped. Neither were women’s provincial jackets (tröja) naturally designated a particular colour. But although colours varied, they did not range beyond the usual white, black, grey, brown, blue and green. Colourfulness and pattern in women’s clothing was shown in scarves, headscarves and caps. To a great extent, the colour palette worn in slave clothing was largely the same as among the labouring poor in Sweden. Grey was a much less prominent colour in New York and New Jersey than in Sweden and it seems that brown 46   Henningsen, I sansernes vold, Vol. 1, p. 340; Styles, The Dress of the People, p. 209; Rublack, Dressing Up, p. 246. 47   Inrikes tidningar 1771-08-29, 1771-10-21, 1772-03-05, 1772-04-27, 1772-07-27, 1777-07-10, 1780-02-24, 1780-04-13, 1782-04-29, 1782-05-27, 1786-02-27, 1798-05-11; Posttidningar 1771-09-09, 1782-05-27, 1796-01-14, 1800-01-04, 1805-09-26; ‘ÖfwerStåthållare-Embetets Kungörelse angående Rymmaren Burman’, Publique handlingar 1776-04-06; Kungl. kungörelser 1776-11-29, 1780-07-29, 1787-03-29, 1787-09-07, 179404-29. 48   Cf. Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, p. 144 (Table 2), 149–152. 49   Inrikes tidningar 1780-05-18. 50   Inrikes tidningar 1773-02-25, 1819-05-28, 1820-06-16.

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largely took its place. In America, also, patterns were more dominant. Patterns are largely found in the chequered shirts and aprons used by slave runaways. In both cases, the recorded mentions of white are roughly the same (in America 17.5 per cent, Sweden 16.9 per cent) – though that figure was most probably much higher in the American case, as the colour of the ‘osnaburg’ fabric of slave clothing was seldom mentioned, but was almost exclusively white. In comparison with Sweden, although the colour palette is largely the same, it seems as though colour was much less designated to particular garments in America. Coats were not confined to a small selection of colours, for instance, and the colourfulness of waistcoats was seen in breeches as well. White was not the preeminent colour of stockings but was worn on all types of garments. This greater propensity at mixing colours and patterns meant that slaves did not necessarily give off a drab impression, despite an increasing uniformity in dress by the end of the eighteenth century.51 It is on an American slave that we find the only mention of purple and pink. Pamelia, who ran way in New York in 1781, wore them in her calico gown and petticoat (Cf. Figure 10.1).52 Whether we look at women’s or men’s clothing, how colourful a person might be perceived to be was also related to layering of clothing. Men might be described to have been wearing a cloak, coat, waistcoat, breeches, stockings, together with a hat and scarf – all of which could be of different colours and patterns, thereby going against any bland impression. The 20-year-old manservant from Karlskrona, Anders Nyberg, wore a grey or blue cloak, a light blue jacket and a green vest with a black and white flame pattern together with green breeches and black boots with yellow collars while on the run.53 At the other end of the scale we find the disappearance of Lasses Olof Andersson from Rättvik parish, whose provincial costume’s range of homespun wool colours was recorded in full detail. He wore the white rough wool of Rättvik peasants in his provincial jacket, a grey vest, yellow leather breeches, a white linen scarf, white woollen stockings and a black drooping hat. The same colour scheme was to be seen on the 22-year-old shop employee Jonas Söderström in Uppsala, who left his master’s home wearing an old grey rough wool long coat, a jacket, a black vest with buttons made of horn and either yellow leather or blue woollen breeches and wool stockings. What mostly set these two apart was that Söderström sported a pair of brass buckles on his shoes. Again, we find a grey coat with double lapels, blue vest and breeches and blue stockings on Hans Lärcka who had escaped from prison at the fort at Vaxholm. Despite being a prisoner, his clothing was made of fine wool and not the rough wool otherwise associated with the lowest orders. The colour scheme was similar for women as well, such as maidservant Cajsa Lisa Wahlström. Her dress was blue, her coat was grey, her stockings white. But again, it was the fabrics that   Prude, ‘To Look Upon the “Lower Sort”’, pp. 146, 156.   Brown and Hodges, ‘Pretends to Be Free’, no. 538. 53   Posttidningar 1783-12-29. 51 52

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Figure 10.1 A peasant woman from the hundred of Bjäre in southern Sweden wearing a pink scarf and blue jacket, skirt and apron. Pink was a colour not mentioned in Swedish runaway ads. Source: Uppsala University Library.

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distinguished her, rather than the colour. Her dress was made of cotton and her coat of fine wool. She decorated her blue cap with sewn-on gold flowers.54 A strong social distinction in Sweden was the use of fine wool (kläde). A fine woollen coat was, in 1761, formally designated by the Crown Statistics Commission as a signifier of being upper class, and according to Sten Carlsson it still had the same value a century later.55 Here there are records of 40 garments of fine wool worn by Swedish runaways, among them prisoners wearing whole ensembles in fine wool. Most of these cases are from the 1780s and onwards. Rough wool (vadmal), on the other hand, is mentioned for 13 garments. The sample made here makes this difficult to interpret as a clear sign of commercialisation among the lower orders in Sweden because this sample is heavily skewed towards the urban centres where ads were printed. Still, it does remind us not to immediately accept the traits and markers of particular status that were decided by the upper echelons of society. Clothing practices were apparently more varied than official statisticians preferred to believe. Another distinctive feature of clothing, besides the colouring of vestments, was its wear. The ads remind us how the lower orders in Sweden and runaway slaves and servants in early America sometimes wore mismatched, patched or worn clothing, and that this was considered distinctive to a great degree. In England, in the period immediately preceding the one discussed here, dirty countenances indicated that a person might be out of place and on the move, and pointed to a shifty character. Neatness and decency were prized attributes in dress among the lower orders.56 Dirt, however, is not mentioned at all in the American ads, whereas it is a distinctive sign in a small number of Swedish cases. In the case of one man’s leather breeches, the advertiser could not say whether they were black or just very dirty.57 A characteristic that does feature often in both cases, though, is apparel being worn, old or turned. A turned coat indicated long-time wear. There is some mention in Sweden also of ‘unturned’ clothing and shoes, as though a person might expect this individual to be clad in worn clothing but at the moment they are not. The comments mentioning old clothing are more common, and some advertisers also comment on wear and mending. The runaway soldier Johan Söderberg’s appearance was seemingly shabby, with his ‘blue and white speckled Surtout, old shammy leather breeches and old dog’s skin cap’. As in the English case, we might assume that neatness or shabbiness was an important distinction within the lower orders, separating the decent from the morally questionable.58

    56   57   58  

Inrikes tidningar 1765-06-03, 1782-04-29, 1785-06-02, 1786-02-27, 1786-12-04. Carlsson, Ståndssamhälle och ståndspersoner 1700–1865, p. 20. Styles, The Dress of the People, p. 210; Dawson, ‘First Impressions’, p. 301. Posttidningar 1780-08-07. Inrikes tidningar 1783-05-29. See also Inrikes tidningar 1771-08-15, 1772-03-05, 1772-04-27, 1783-05-29, 1790-04-19, 1798-05-11; Posttidningar 1771-05-31, 1782-12-09; Brown and Hodges, ‘Pretends to Be Free’, no. 286. 54

55

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What does this say about the meanings of sartorial colour in eighteenth-century Sweden and America? Blue, whether we consider it vivid or bland, was seemingly a sign of social prestige that many men and women among the lower orders sought to use themselves. Blue was a relatively cheap colour to dye fabrics into and was the most commonly used in garments, more often than black or white.59 The bleached white linen shirt, the sign of respectability and cleanliness that became more and more important in the eighteenth century, does not figure among the classes discussed here.60 In most cases it was probably worn underneath coats and cloaks, the colder climate in Sweden rendering it practically invisible, or it was, like women’s petticoats, designated as underwear. The only four mentions of shirts in Sweden do not mention white at all. In two no information on colour is given, and the two other shirts were blue and striped. The colour of clothing was a means of noting the social status of the runaways. Taken together with signs of shiftiness, such as dirt and wear, the advertisers took pains to let readers know that runaways were among the lesser sorts in society. This is of course self-evident: runaways were slaves, soldiers and servants and among the lowest ranking in these two societies. What is of interest to note however, is that this is not only shown in phrases like ‘Negro fellow’ and ‘dräng’ (manservant), but also in the colours of the clothing themselves. ‘The Blue’ in Sweden were often relatively poor civilian men of low social status, not only military men. Homogeny in Danish peasant men’s costume in the period discussed here has been described as a uniform. Over half of men’s coats in inventories were grey or bluish grey.61 This study would confirm a similar picture among Swedish urban men. If we construct an ideal type, men’s coats were either blue or grey. They wore white stockings and black hats. Their breeches were blue, black or yellow (of leather or cloth). Variation was shown in buttons, laces on hats, shoe buckles or shoe laces and in the one site of colourfulness – the vest. Had the sample included more men in rural areas, it is possible that Swedish men would have been as grey as their Danish counterparts. Colourfulness or colourlessness was clearly a function of social expectation. There existed ideas about how different groups in society should look. In runaway ads, colour of clothing was part of the assemblage that created personal identity, and readers could judge whether the different elements of the assemblage – the name, fabrics, occupation, colours, complexion – harmonised or were dissonant. And it seems as though in early America, to a much larger extent than in Sweden, slaves used dissonance to demarcate individuality. Social and cultural space could be measured in the use of colourful or valuable items in one’s apparel. White Americans often took this limited use of silk, or of an article of clothing that had belonged to someone above a slave’s station, as a sign of some sort of illicit   Rublack, Dressing Up, p. 262.   de Vries, The Industrious Revolution. 61   Henningsen, I sansernes vold, Vol. 1, pp. 340–341. 59 60

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activity.62 The contestation of or discrepancy with social expectation was an important signifier of individuality which was not employed in Sweden in terms of colour, only perhaps in the use of fine wool. If we instead view women’s clothing in Sweden, it is more difficult to construct a uniform. Had the part of women in this study corresponded to their part in the social fabric, it would have shown a less homogenised and more colourful picture of estate society. Women did not use more colours than men, but they were more varied in their dress and wore more patterns. No women of any social order can be designated a specific colour. This does indicate something of the way that contemporaries viewed the role of men and women in society. Particularly, men’s coats were used as symbols of different social orders – the blue of the military and the grey of the peasantry; women’s clothing was not. Conclusions If we look at how the colours of the runaways were described, it seems as though the possibilities were slim of distinguishing a red-faced man in a blue coat in a crowd. Colours were used in Sweden not so much to register identifiability in itself, as to place individuals into a series of recognisable categories. What did happen, however, was that complexions varied in colour regardless of the social scale, and men wore the prestigious colour blue irrespective of their social standing. Colour, then, was no clear-cut, easily understood social signifier. The assemblage of sign equipment that created identifiability was based on a combination of ratios. Individuals were rarely placed only within one group, they were placed in several, and this built distinction despite the simplistic forces of racism and corporativism. In America, systems of recognisability based on skin colour overlapped with complexion. Racial and other colour schemes were not simply replaced, they existed side by side. While ‘black’ became a racial category in America, ‘black’ could simultaneously be used to describe a person of Irish decent. This combination of categories, of several epistemologies, might lead us to paradoxically find the unfree in America more individualised than the free in Sweden. The commercialised nature of dress in early America had no equivalence in Sweden. Roughly the same colours were used by runaways in both areas, but in Sweden these colours were, for men, designated for specific garments. The vividness and mixture of colour that slave clothing would exhibit was in Sweden ordered and preset. This not only points to a lesser degree of commercialisation, but also to a greater adherence to social norms and social order among Swedish runaways. Blue dominated men’s coats in Sweden, with grey a close second. Most likely, the blue used in runaway clothing was not vivid and expensive indigo blue, and 62   White and White, ‘Slave Clothing and African-American Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, pp. 154–159.

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it should therefore be categorised among the bland early-modern colour palette. Further research will have to determine whether blue was part of a Swedish longue durée of colour, or a sign of newly changed regimes of colour in comparison with previous centuries of grey. In place of colour as a category of recognition, we find fabrics, decorations, embroidery, buttons, shoe buckles and laces, wear and dirt functioning as tell-tale signs of social standing. The use of fine wool among runaways could be attributed to a ‘democratisation’ of dress but, perhaps more likely, it can be attributed to their using second-hand clothing, whereby it was not the fabric but the wear that indicated social standing. The groupings that were recognisable in complexions and clothes were coarse and hardly part of a newly globalised conception of how to characterise people. Rather, they were based in humoural thinking and in culturally specific gendered and classdetermined clothing practices. Recognisability was a matter of checking boxes in different preset categories: hair and eyebrows – black, brown, red or white; stature – tall, stout, slender, thin, fat; clothing – blue, white, grey, black, other. But these categories were only basic groups to which personal stories and personal belongings might be added. It was the details afforded to certain runaways, the velvet or corduroy breeches, the silk scarf, the gold-striped waistcoat, the sea green, the ‘couleur de loup’, the pea-sized scar, that set them apart from a majority in grey, blue, black and white.

MANNERS Manners were crucial for social life in the old regimes of early-modern Europe. People from the different estates were supposed to act, dress, speak and feel in accordance with their standing in society. These performed differences – described and regulated in laws and religious tracts as well as in advice manuals – made it possible for people to understand their social worlds and act in a proper way. Changes in the eighteenth century challenged this order. Enlightenment ideas questioned the political, cultural and social fundaments of the old regimes. Global contacts and increased trade brought new products and possibilities to local markets. New patterns of consumption were possible due to rising living standards in some groups and spread through novel ideas about fashionable lifestyles. In this process, traditional manners were challenged and criticised as well as defended and glorified; it became harder to decode people’s social standing and estate by their performance. Gender was integrated in the social and cultural order of the old regime as well as in the developing new order, and many struggles between old and new values were fought in gendered terms. The following chapter concerns the ways politics and economics were intertwined with gendered norms on manners in Sweden from the end of the eighteenth century and a few decades into the new century. A growing involvement in global trade combined with an intensified social transformation created a large body of comments and discussions in the Swedish public debate. The commentators addressed both lawmakers and men and women of the people when they urged for changes in laws as well as for a reformation of manners. The cosmopolitan nature of these debates, with both commodities and ideas flowing across Swedish borders, influenced the course of the development.

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Chapter 11

When Sweden Harboured Idlers: Gender and Luxury in Public Debates, c. 1760–1830 Karin Hassan Jansson1

The growing influx of foreign goods, customs and ideas to eighteenth-century Sweden was intensively discussed in the public sphere at the time. The balance of trade, agricultural methods and free thinking were critical themes. However, the consequences of this influx were also discussed in relation to the household economy, the distribution of power in marriage, population growth and excessive consumption. Luxury was, as Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger put it, ‘the keyword of the period, a central term in the language of cultural transformation’ in eighteenth-century discourse.2 During this period the traditional critique of luxury was challenged by more favourable opinions, as distinctions were made between old and new luxury, and the language of luxury became more nuanced.3 In the European context, Sweden’s economy was less commercialised in the eighteenth century, and there were no large-scale engagements in global trade. Although the consumption of luxury goods was also advocated by a few social commentators 1   I would like to thank the participants of the Gender seminar at the Department of History, Uppsala University, and the Seminar of Eighteenth-Century Masculinities at Uppsala University Library for useful comments on earlier versions of this text. I am also grateful to the Swedish Collegium of Advanced Studies (SCAS) for providing me with a fellowship during which I could finish the text. 2   Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, ‘Introduction’, in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (eds), Houndmills, 2003, p. 1. See also, e.g., Sarah Maza, ‘Luxury, Morality and Social Change: Why There Was No Middle-Class Consciousness in Prerevolutionary France’, The Journal of Modern History 69 (June 1997); E.J. Clery, The Feminization Debate in Eighteenth-Century England: Literature, Commerce and Luxury, Houndmills, 2004, p. 7; John Shovlin, The Political Economy of Virtue: Luxury, Patriotism, and the Origins of the French Revolution, Ithaca and London, 2006, p. 14. 3   Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Luxury Debates’, in Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (eds), Houndmills, 2003, p. 9; Jan de Vries, ‘Luxury in the Dutch Golden Age in Theory and Practice’, Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires and Delectable Goods, Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger (eds), Houndmills, 2003, pp. 41– 48; Isabel V. Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815, Ithaca, 1996, pp. 159; Shovlin, The Political Economy, Chapter 1.

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in Sweden, concern about the consequences of changed consumption patterns dominated Swedish public debate throughout the century.4 Luxury was – according to scholars studying both Swedish and European history – generally associated with women and femininity, and coupled with weakness, effeminacy and dangerous female desires.5 At the same time, luxury and effeminacy were persistent themes in eighteenth-century discussions on masculinity.6 This chapter explores the way descriptions of the ‘new’ society, manifested through the increased influx of luxury goods and foreign ideas, were intertwined with the notions of gender in public debates in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Sweden. Gender relations were discussed and notions on gender were deployed and developed in relation to different political and economic questions in the public debate. The institution of marriage was often at the core of these discussions. I will show that gender and conspicuous consumption were recurrent themes in a wide range of genres and contexts, and argue that luxury was not as prominently associated with femininity in the Swedish discourse as previous research has claimed. The concept of cosmopolitanism encompassed on the one hand the tension between increased tolerance and openness in society, and the nation-state as something exclusive and superior on the other.7 Similar contradictions existed in several fields. In the economic context, broadly speaking, the ideas of free trade and increased competition stood in contrast to the ideas of mercantile protectionism and strict regulation of the market. In moral, as well as economic contexts, traditional ideas of the self-sufficient household and husbandry were in opposition to favourable opinions about division of labour, 4   For example, Bo Peterson, ‘Yppighets Nytta och Torftighets Fägnad’ Pamflettdebatten om 1766 års överflödsförordning’, Historisk Tidskrift 1984 (104); Oscar Wieselgren, Yppighets nytta: ett bidrag till de ekonomiska åskådningarnas historia i Sverige under det adertonde århundradet, Uppsala, 1912; Leif Runefelt, ‘Från yppighetens nytta till dygdens försvar: den frihetstida debatten om lyx’, Historisk tidskrift 2004 (124), 2. 5   For example, Berg and Eger, ‘The Rise and Fall’, pp. 18–19; Agneta Helmius, ‘Tankar om Flickors Ostadighet. En debatt om kön i Stockholm år 1758’, Nord Nytt 50 (1993), p. 79; Sylvana Tomaselli, ‘Woman in Enlightenment Conjectural Histories’, Conceptualising Woman in Enlightenment Thought: Conceptualiser la femme dans la pensée des lumières, Hans Erich Bödeker and Lieselotte Steinbrügge (eds), Berlin, 2001, p. 16; Ann Öhrberg, ‘Françoise Marguerite Janiçon. En kvinnlig aktör på frihetstidens politiska arena’, Riksdag, kaffehus och predikstol: Frihetstidens politiska kultur 1766–1772, Marie-Christine Skuncke and Henrika Tandefelt (eds), Stockholm, 2003, p. 205 6   For example, Philip Carter, ‘Men About Town: Representations of Foppery and Masculinity in Early Eighteenth-Century Urban Society’, in Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities, Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus (eds), London and New York, 1997; Michèle Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century, London 1996, pp. 38–41; Clery, The Feminization Debate, pp. 9–11; Thomas A. Foster, Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America, Boston, 2006, Chapter 5. 7   See the chapter by Carola Nordbäck in this book.

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growing consumption and increasing trade. The intensified exchange of ideas and goods on a global scale reinforced already existing tensions in Swedish society, as well as creating new ones. The starting point in provincial cosmopolitanism taken by this anthology enables us to focus on these ambivalences and tensions, which will provide us with insights into the way eighteenth-century people dealt with, and gave meaning to, their experiences of an increased influx of luxury goods and foreign ideas. The analysis in this chapter is based upon texts in pamphlets, essay periodicals and newspapers which explicitly associated notions of masculinity and femininity with changing patterns of consumption and new lifestyles. Most authors expressed concern about these changes and the ensuing consequences for gender relations and society in general.8 These concerns were often articulated in debates on economic policy, but the connections between male and female ideals, foreign goods, changed customs and manners, as well as the welfare of society, were common in texts from a wide range of genres and in different contexts.9 Thus, the sources analysed here do not derive from one particular discourse, but include debates on economic policy, explications of the law, political satire, popular history writing, as well as marriage manuals and witticisms in newspapers. They were all part of the expanding public sphere of the eighteenth century. The social commentators contributing to the public debate in Sweden generally belonged to the educated minority, and people reading their texts were predominantly from the same social groups: the expanding middling orders and the upper echelons of society.10 The majority of the texts were published anonymously, written, for example, by academics, priests and professional writers.11 They aimed at influencing public opinion on current political issues, as well as making an impact upon readers’ moral behaviour. It is not possible within the given framework of this chapter to elaborate upon which ways a particular 8   My selection of texts is not directly related to the debates on luxury and sumptuary legislation. Instead, sources have been selected on the grounds that they include discussions on gender relations. Consequently, several central texts in the debates on luxury and sumptuary legislation are not dealt with here. See, for example, Wieselgren 1912. 9   For the European context, see, e.g., Berg and Eger, ‘Introduction’, p. 5. For the Swedish context, see, e.g., Ann Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer: författarroll och retorik hos frihetstidens kvinnliga författare, Stockholm 2001, Chapter 5; Jonas Liliequist, ‘Changing Discourses of Marital Violence in Sweden from the Age of Reformation to the Late Nineteenth Century’, Gender & History 23 (April 2011). 10   For example, Margareta Björkman, Läsarnas nöje: kommersiella lånbibliotek i Stockholm 1783–1809, Uppsala, 1992, pp. 484–486. 11   Magnus Orrelius and Johan Stagnell were professional writers, Samuel Cronander was an academic and became a dean, Petrus Munck a bishop and a professor, and Johan Frederic Kryger was considered as one of the most prominent Swedish economists during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772). A few women participated in the public debate in eighteenth-century Sweden, and some of them also wrote texts of relevance for the theme of this article.

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text was aimed at the former or the latter. Instead, I focus on identifying recurring patterns on how gender was integrated in the argumentation in these texts, and how gendered stereotypes came to the fore. In the period under study, circa 1760–1830, luxury goods and foreign ideas reached a much greater number of people and wider social strata. This period therefore stands out in comparison to previous eras, as the discussions on the consequences of luxury consumption came to involve a wider range of social groups.12 Furthermore, in light of the European debate on luxury, the time between the mid eighteenth century and the bulk of the first half of the nineteenth century has been identified by previous research as a formative period for the notions of gender which came to dominate during the nineteenth century.13 When Sweden Harboured Idlers According to many social commentators, foreign influences negatively affected Swedish men. As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, the fop (also called petit maitre and whippersnapper)14 became a regular and continually criticised and ridiculed figure in Swedish public debate and popular culture.15 The fop – also a common stereotype in eighteenth-century European debate – was characterised, inter alia, by vanity and laziness, and for having an interest in everything superficial and insignificant. He personified, in the words of the Swedish historian Jonas Liliequist, the contemporary concept of unmanliness.16 The fop was considered to be influenced by French ideas and was characterised as the worst kind of consumer: he borrowed money, bought considerable amounts of unnecessary luxury goods and did not repay his debts. The fop had a female equivalent in the woman who indulged in luxury consumption, paid visits to her friends gossiping all day, and squandered her 12   For example, Christer Ahlberger, Konsumtionsrevolutionen: Om det moderna konsumtionssamhällets framväxt 1750–1900, Göteborg, 1996, pp. 50–118; Leos Müller, ‘Kolonialprodukter i Sveriges handel och konsumtionskultur, 1700–1800’, Historisk Tidskrift 2004 (124), 2, pp. 225–248; Pernilla Rasmussen, Skräddaren, sömmerskan och modet: arbetsmetoder och arbetsdelning i tillverkningen av kvinnlig dräkt 1770–1830, Stockholm, 2010, pp. 49–52; Berg and Eger, ‘The Rise and Fall’, pp. 19–20. 13   For example, Berg and Eger, ‘The Rise and Fall’, p. 19. 14   In Swedish, sprätthök, snushane or lillherre. 15   For example, Karin Sennefelt, Politikens hjärta: Medborgarskap, manlighet och plats i frihetstidens Stockholm, Stockholm, 2011, Chapter 6; Jonas Liliequist, ‘Från niding till sprätt: en studie i det svenska omanlighetsbegreppets historia från vikingatid till sent 1700-tal’, in Manligt och omanligt i ett historiskt perspektiv, Anne Marie Berggren (ed.), Stockholm, 1999; Mari-Christine Skuncke, ‘Teater och opera’, Signums svenska kulturhistoria: Frihetstiden, Jakob Christensson (ed.), Lund, 2006. 16   Liliequist, ‘Från niding till sprätt’, p. 85.

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husband’s assets (see more below). Both these men and women were considered to be influenced by foreign (especially French) culture, and their lifestyle was made up of imported fashion, translated novels and exotic spices. The social commentators put the fop in stark contrast to the ideal stereotype of the ‘honest Swedish man’, as written in a song from 1760.17 This ideal man did not allow himself to be seduced, and his kinship to ancient heroes was emphasised. In a periodical article from 1798, citizens were challenged to join forces against luxuriance, with the words: ‘Would the heroes of the North brawl to be able to shine in magnificent luster, in silk, fluff, lace and embroideries, which is the uniform of the effeminates?’18 Modest and glorious Nordic heroes were compared to degenerate contemporary figures wearing female accessories.19 Ideal manliness was constructed in relation to positively charged concepts such as liberty, Swedishness and honesty.20 Independence was another central theme in texts aimed at emphasising the consequences of luxury on men and masculinity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With regard to the English context, it has been said that effeminate not only referred to the notion of femininity, but also reflected the concept that the fop lived in excess and was subjected to his passions.21 Also, in the Swedish debate vanity was seen as a passion which could completely capture a man. As late as 1828, an anonymous writer warned readers not to confuse the Swedish word mod (bravery) for the French la mode. Mod, he wrote, meant ‘independence – strength, power’, while la mode should be understood as ‘dependency – slavery, weakness’.22 The same author rhetorically asked if it really was reasonable for people to rush into destitution and misery, ‘destroying their 17   [Johan Stagnell] En wisa, om en ärlig man […], Stockholm, 1760. All the quotations are translations from sources in Swedish, made by myself. I am very grateful to Mia Skott who has made comments on the English translation of the text and its quotes. 18   Skrifter af Sällskapet för Allmänne medborgerlige kunskaper, IV bandet V stycket, Stockholm, 1798, p. 185. 19   For example, Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, pp. 238–239; Carl Frängsmyr, Klimat och karaktär: naturen och människan i sent svenskt 1700-tal, Stockholm, 2001, pp. 27– 30; Bo Lindberg, Den antika skevheten: Politiska ord och begrepp i det tidig-moderna Sverige, Stockholm, 2006, p. 137; Hanna Enefalk, ‘Vikingen kontra vindrickaren. Forntid och konsumtion i några sångtryck från 1800-talet’, in Tankar om ursprung: forntiden och medeltiden i nordisk historieanvändning, Samuel Edquist, Lars Hermanson and Stefan Johansson (ed.), Stockholm, 2009; Sennefelt, Politikens hjärta, Chapter 6. 20   For example, Jonas Nordin, Ett fattigt men fritt folk: Nationell och politisk självbild i Sverige från sen stormaktstid till slutet av frihetstiden, Stockholm, 2000, pp. 245–263; Lindberg 2005; Charlotta Wolff, ‘Pro Patria et Libertate Frihetsbegreppet i 1700-talets svenska politiska språk’, Historisk Tidskrift för Finland, 2007:4. 21   For example, Carter, ‘Men About Town’; Clery, The Feminization Debate, pp. 8–11; Dror Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self: Identity and Culture in EighteenthCentury England, New Haven, 2004, p. 63; Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity, pp. 7–10. 22   En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828, p. 26.

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peace, autonomy, domestic happiness, and independence’ just to be able to ‘fill our tables with the most exquisite dainties of the South, to decorate our bodies with African feathers and the finest fabrics of India, or to be intoxicated by the most precious liquors from all parts of the world?’23 By giving in to his passions in such a way, a man would jeopardise his free and independent position.24 Fashion and luxury were often metaphorically depicted as female figures and were deployed to illustrate the subordination of men. In 1765, fashion was portrayed as a ‘Souveraine mistress over the customs of free people’ in a pamphlet concerning marriage.25 In another text from the 1760s, the author asked himself how his brave and pragmatic fellow citizens, once so feared both within and outside Europe, could allow such a: gutless enemy within the doors of Manhem, to devour your property and your lawful heritage? […] Will you let Luxury, the traitoress, defeat the time-honored Atland? Is this procuress going to lull our heroes to effeminacy? […] Why should a free and undefeated people, which is fortunate to have the wisest government and the best laws in the world, shoulder the yoke of luxury? 26

Luxury, depicted here in a female character, was brought together with the characteristics of cowardice, deceitfulness, prostitution and effeminacy. Manhem – the Swedish realm, gendered masculine – on the other hand was associated with freedom, wisdom, heroic deeds and justice. Thus, the battle between morality and luxury, good and evil, was fought in gendered terms and the construction of gender was interwoven with political language, even though the substance of the debate – in this case mainly the moral decay of the day – did not regard gender relations as such. The tension between dependence and independence was also addressed here. Luxury controlled, defeated and ruled the once independent Manhem as the failed heroes had let her in, allowing her to devour their heritage and pacify them. The men had only themselves and their passions to blame for this subjugation. Another aspect of men’s loss of freedom concerned their perceived submission in the household. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the wife’s domination over the husband became a common theme in Swedish popular culture.27 One 23   En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828, s. 43. Luxury and vanity were depicted as threats to male independence in the first half of the eighteenth century (Sennefelt, Politikens hjärta, Chapter 6) and well into the nineteenth (Enefalk, ‘Vikingen kontra vindrickaren’). 24   On the importance of self-determination in the masculinity of civil society, see, e.g., Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society, pp. 410–411; Foster, Sex and the EighteenthCentury Man, pp. 177–179. 25   [Bengt Holmén] Orsaker til ungkarlarnas hinder från giftermål […], 1765, p. 7. 26   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, pp. 24–25. 27   Liliequist, ‘Från niding till sprätt’; Liliequist, ‘Changing Discourses’.

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reason articulated for the growing reluctance of men to marry was said to be ‘women’s unbendingness and hunger for power, their unwillingness to be submissive to men’.28 In numerous stories about unhappy marriages, poorly raised children and economically ruined households, men’s resignation to their wives’ desire for luxury and self-indulgent lifestyles played a major role.29 Thus the freedom and independence of a man was not only threatened by his subjection to his own passions, but also to his wife and her passions. The power balance within the marriage was a recurring theme, and a pamphlet published in 1755 lucidly encapsulates its morals. It is a story about a man who after many years abroad returned home to Sweden wishing to get married. He hesitated though, since he had heard a story of a wife who, with the aid of her friends, had flogged her husband because he had not obeyed her every order.30 This story had worried the returning man, and thus he sought advice from five different married men. Two of them were depicted as tyrants and egoistic husbands. One of them, Cholericus, said: I do not fear Alexander or Hercules, much less let myself be governed by a woman. If you want to get married you should immediately seize power. Don’t tolerate non-compliance in any form: a wife should never speak in your presence, but remain silent and obey […] I want to have a wife I can brag about, I want to live in plenitude created by the money raised by her.31

Cholericus wouldn’t hesitate to strike his wife if she didn’t obey him and if she dared to strike him back he would immediately flog her publicly, divorce her, send her to the poorhouse and marry another, wealthier woman. One of the other advisers, Phlegmaticus, treated his wife in a similar way to Cholericus, demanding her to attend to his every wish. He would sleep until ten in the morning, at which time his wife would serve him tea and prepare his pipe for him to smoke in bed. Then she would dress him, cook for him, get him his beer and attend to him and his friends when they played cards in the evening. The protagonist of the story thought this was a shocking way to treat a wife and did not find it strange if the wife of such a man – treated like a maid and a thrall – became desperate.

  [Bengt Holmén] Orsaker til ungkarlarnas hinder från giftermål […], 1765, p. 4.   For example, [Johan Stagnell] Tragedie-Comedie, uti en act, kallad: Ris-Bastugan,

28 29

Stockholm, 1755; [Petrus Munck] Samtal om det oinskränkta qwinno-wäldet, Stockholm, 1755; Narragtigheter, Stockholm, 1815; En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828. 30   The story was told in a play (Risbastugan) performed in the same year. The play is discussed in Liliequist, ‘Changing Discourses’, pp. 12–17. 31   [Petrus Munck] Samtal om det oinskränkta Qwinno-Wäldet, Stockholm, 1755, p. 5.

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Two other men in the story behaved in the opposite way. They could not uphold their authority, surrendering it to their wives.32 One of them, Sanguinus, said to the man seeking advice: Supremacy is necessary in marriage: somebody has to have it. I think the wife is best suited for it. […] I have surrendered to my wife and you should do the same if you want to be happily married.33

Both Sanguinus and the other henpecked husband were depicted as cowards by the author; they even tolerated being beaten, as long as it didn’t happen in public. The story thus highlighted two male countertypes: the tyrant and the henpecked husband. Both of them were strongly rejected as models of masculinity. At the end of the story, the author provides a solution. The fifth adviser was a wise man with the experience of a happy marriage who emphasised that one shouldn’t judge all women alike. Even though some women misbehaved, most of them did not. He also pointed out that some wives lived under very harsh conditions, subordinated to dictatorial husbands, having almost no opportunities to improve their lives. In such cases, he said, one must understand that wives occasionally made mistakes when trying to escape their dire situation and enslavement. Thus, in the end, the protagonist of the story was advised to get married. As long as he didn’t claim any unjust and absolutist power over his wife, he didn’t have to fear any attempts on her part to seize power.34 The importance of the power structure in marriage was also illuminated in the pamphlet Fruntimmers-ödet from 1772, in which women of different nations were characterised on the basis of the power relation between the spouses. The African woman was epitomised as a slave to a commanding master, and the Turkish woman as a jewel that should be kept under lock and key. Swedish women were depicted both as commanding and submissive characters, and the author emphasised that many women ruled over their husbands when it came to moral as well as economic and political matters. ‘Some men, though, understand to socialize with these sensible but weak creatures with such smart manners, that they neither become rulers, slaves or servants.’35 It was crucial to find an operational power structure in the marriage, a difficult balancing act treated in many texts.

32   For similar stories from the Netherlands, although focusing on the feminine figure of the bad-tempered wife, see Dorothée Sturkenboom, ‘Historizing the Gender of Emotions: Changing Perceptions in Dutch Enlightenment Thought’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Autumn 2000), pp. 58–59. 33   [Petrus Munck] Samtal om det oinskränkta Qwinno-Wäldet, Stockholm, 1755, pp. 4–5. 34   [Petrus Munck] Samtal om det oinskränkta Qwinno-Wäldet, Stockholm, 1755. 35   Johan Niclas Zetherström, Fruntimmersödet i flere konunga-riket […], Stockholm, 1772, p. 5.

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Figure 11.1 A drawing made by Carl August Ehrensvärd in 1795 on the theme of the henpecked husband, depicting a wife beating her fleeing husband; the stick she’s using is a swaddled infant

Source: Uppsala University Library.

The capacity of men to master their own passions and to maintain a legitimate authority in their households was given immense significance for domestic peace, as well as for society at large. Enslaved by their own or their wife’s vanity, men

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allowed their financial resources to wither away. Such behaviour had serious consequences for their individual households, as well as for the realm as a whole.36 The academic Samuel Cronander speculated on how men could allow luxury to devour the resources of the country in such a way, and described how the hardearned gains of ancient societies were now wasted: ‘The silver that we bought with bloodstained victories is in part exported, in part melted down to make coffee and teapots, sugar bowls, tableware […] and more of such fancies, which eventually will disappear.’37 The two elements considered at this time as constituting the economy – the private and the national households – were inextricably linked.38 Bankruptcy threatened the individual household, with a negative balance of trade at the national level. According to many commentators, unsustainable developments of the household economy also led to fewer marriages and thus reduced population growth. Two of the mercantilist foundations – a positive balance of trade and a large population – were thus endangered by men’s inability to control their own or their wife’s desires. There was also a crucial political aspect in the commentators’ descriptions; the men who adopted the reprehensible idle lifestyle not only jeopardised their own independence and political subjectivity, but also risked the autonomy of the realm. The opposite of the fop and the emasculated fellow-citizen – the free and honest Swede who did not allow himself to be tempted by foreign indulgences – was associated by the commentators with the ideals of the emerging civil society, political subjectivity and the independence of Sweden. The Noblest and Most Industrious Woman in the World What were the consequences of the availability of luxury goods and foreign influences considered to be for women? In numerous articles in Stockholms Posten around 1780, ridiculous female figures obsessed by fashion, hair style and costly pleasures were depicted, and these stereotypes were similar to their European equivalents. They were jealously gossiping with and about friends, and constantly trying to outshine each other with furs and jewellery. These female characters were   With regard to the economic debate in the country as a whole, see Leif Runefelt, Dygden som välståndets grund: dygd, nytta och egennytta i frihetstidens ekonomiska tänkande, Stockholm, 2005, Chapter 5, especially p. 111. 37   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, pp. 21–22. See also, for example, Läsning till utbredande af Medborgerliga kunskaper, tredje häftet, 1817, p. 83. 38   For example, Sven-Eric Liedman, Den synliga handen: Anders Berch och ekonomiämnena vid 1700-talets svenska universitet, Värnamo, 1986, p. 136; Marion Gray, Productive Men, Reproductive Women: The Agrarian Household and the Emergence of Separate Spheres During the German Enlightenment, Oxford, 2000, Chapter 2. 36

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in some texts explicitly said to belong to the nobility, but they also appeared in versions from other social groups.39 According to many commentators, these women of the upper and middling orders generally suffered from an inadequate upbringing and particularly from a poor education in housework. Young women were advised to avoid inappropriate topics of conversation, as such were only deployed by ‘mindless fops and women, whose manners only had been instructed at the dressing table’.40 In 1765, a commentator described a young woman as a beauty who knew how to live her Scavoir Vivre, having had a French governess since her early infancy, thus not at all used to ‘sit at home all week without company, knitting a sock, or to care about so called household tasks as a country girl’.41 As late as 1828, a similar education was described: The young daughter of a simple craftsman in a provincial town now must learn the dancer’s funny way of stepping through life, and French vocabulary to be able to say: Ah! mon Dieu, quelle bête! to the silly country girl.42

The author drew attention to the proliferation of the objectionable lifestyles, from big cities to small towns, from the upper to the middling classes, by placing the depicted condemnable education of a young girl in an artisan family of a provincial town.43 The mocked country girl who figured in the text, in fact constituted more of an ideal. However, this negative – albeit humorous – stereotypical image of women did not completely dominate the debate. Apart from the domestic rural woman, the stereotype was also contrasted with an image of the ancient honest Swedish woman.44 According to Cronander, luxury consumption risked corrupting ‘the noblest, most industrious and most serious woman in the world’.45 He explicitly opposed the association made between women, luxury and lavishness and rendered   Elof Ehnmark, Ur den gamla Stockholms Posten: en samling artiklar, valda och utgivna av Elof Ehnmark, Stockholm, 1931, pp. 29–74. 40   Huru skal et ungt fruntimmer wärdigt bilda sig? … [in translation from German by Eric Forssén], Göteborg, 1787, p. 15. 41   [Bengt Holmén] Orsaker til ungkarlarnas hinder från giftermål […], 1765. Also En resande mans tankar, som ärnar gifta sig i Stockholm […], 1786, p. 4. 42   En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828, p. 23. 43   Concerning differences between urban and rural areas and different social groups, see, e.g., Johan Fredic Kryger, Svar på frågan: Om svenska folket denna tiden är av – eller tilltagande i kristliga seder …, Uppsala, 1782; Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1798, IV bandet V stycket, p. 184. 44   See also Helmius, ‘Tankar om Flickors Ostadighet’; Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, pp. 184–5; Öhrberg, ‘Françoise Marguerite Janiçon’. 45   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, p. 24. 39

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Figure 11.2 The negative female stereotype not only spent all her husband’s money, she also cheated on him (this is illustrated by Carl August Ehrensvärd in a drawing from 1795 in which a man is cuckolded almost as soon as he had married) Source: Uppsala University Library.

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the fashionable lady as an exception. He addressed his antagonists in the debate with the words: ‘Believe me! […] Our Swedish women are governed by a better sense and nobler reasoning.’46 He shifted some of the responsibility for women’s vices to men, and explained that women would be chaste, if they were protected against ‘men’s deceptive courtesies, be temperate if free from coercion, moderate by nature itself, and satisfied with little’.47 As in the case of men, these texts produced ideas about and shaped notions of a particularly sensible Swedish woman, a character who differed from other European women, as well as from other women in Sweden. As illustrated in the quote, the degenerating influences not only came directly from abroad, but also indirectly from womens’ wishes to please men who only appreciated shallowness.48 However, the nation and nature created, according to Cronander, another kind of woman: chaste, honourable and content. It is also important to note that luxury and pleasures were regarded as effeminising for women as well as for men. The historian Dror Wahrman, among others, has stressed that effeminacy was used to characterise both men and women. In the late eighteenth-century British context, he describes effeminacy as ‘a shorthand for numerous deleterious effects of luxury – such as corruption, degeneracy, enervation, supineness, and self-indulgence’.49 His conclusion seems to be applicable also for the Swedish case. The evils of luxury were indeed associated with both sexes in the Swedish debate – to corrupt versions of femininity as well as masculinity – and were thus not predominantly linked to women and femininity. Instead, men and masculinity appear to be the most problematic categories in relation to luxury and changed patterns of consumption. Although women were described as being too interested in fashion and too prone to impressing men by being beautiful and coquettish, the main responsibility – also for the behaviour of women – was often placed upon men. If men were impressed by beauty instead of household skills, by wealth instead of wisdom, they had only themselves to blame. In this context, it is important to stress that many gender historians who have studied the eighteenth-century debate on luxury have done so either in relation to women and femininity or in relation to men and masculinity. Therefore they have partly mistakenly interpreted the negative opinions on luxury

46   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, p. 34. This way of depicting immoral women as exceptions was also common in the debate on women in 1758 (Helmius, ‘Tankar om Flickors Ostadighet’). 47   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, p. 35. 48   See also, e.g., Johan Niclas Zetherström, Fruntimmersödet i flere konunga-riket […], Stockholm, 1772, pp. 4–5; Fruntimmerna, sådana de warit, äro och skola blifva: eller Qvinnokönets Böjelser, Vanor, Svagheter, Seder och Passioner […], Stockholm, 1828. There were also texts that stressed the opposite, that women only liked shallow men. 49   Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self, p. 63.

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as linked with one or the other gender. In my experience it is always more fruitful to look at notions of masculinity and femininity simultaneously.50 The effeminisation of men and women was regarded as having serious consequences for marriage as an institution. Fops and henpecked husbands were not considered to be good husbands, neither were the inadequately educated and lavish women. According to a periodical article from 1795, the excessively egoistic lifestyle of a minority resulted in a ‘considerable number of citizens’ being denied the possibility to ‘share domestic happiness with a beloved spouse, and as a consequence the state was deprived of the strength that came with many well educated sons’.51 In a pamphlet on marriage from 1806, the author stressed that men and women formed concubinages instead of marriages. Men shunned marriage because they thought their incomes would be insufficient to provide for the expected lifestyle of the day. The anonymous commentator longed for ‘the times when plainness was in fashion, when husband and wife with joint forces worked for the prosperity and continuation of the household’.52 According to an article from 1809, avarice made marriage scarcer by the day.53 The legitimate unions of men and women – prescribed both by God and nature – were thus corrupted by immorality, resulting both in a reduction of the population and in poorer education of children. Moral Decay and Social Disorder Numerous commentators in the debates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century described the contemporary time as a period of moral decay. A critical concept of the time was that societies were influenced by their geographical position and the climate: laws, constitutions, customs and forms of cohabitation had slowly evolved in accordance with nature and culture.54 Authors of the texts I have studied sometimes highlighted the differences between various parts of the world in order to put their own practices into perspective. Marriage patterns were a recurrent theme in such contexts. In an article from 1797, the author stressed that men in Europe were only allowed to have one wife, whilst men in Asia and Africa could have as many wives as they wished and could provide for. The Islamic 50   This conclusion is elaborated upon and argued for in relation to my research on the conceptions of rape in early-modern Sweden. (Karin Hassan Jansson, Kvinnofrid: Synen på våldtäkt och konstruktionen av kön i Sverige 1600–1800, Uppsala, 2002.) 51   Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1795, I bandet VI stycket, p. 219. The author of the article was Anders Gustaf Barchæus, Professor of Economy at Uppsala University. 52   Några strödda ord i hast, om äktenskapet, oordentliga sammanlefnaden emellan begge könen och den senares inflytande på samhället, Carlskrona, 1806, p. 18. 53   Journal för Litteraturen och Theatern, No. 57, 20 November 1809. 54   Frängsmyr, Klimat och karaktär. Ann Öhrberg also provides examples of how these were used in the Swedish debate on luxury (Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, p. 233).

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rules were suitable for the ‘hot and unstable temper of the Orient’, and polygamy – he stated in line with Montesquieu – could be reasonable ‘in some cases and climates’. However, in the ‘realm of Mohammad’ this was not suitable as the men tyrannised their wives and cared poorly for their children. Women who had several men, which according to the author happened in some Indian areas, were unacceptable: ‘it is always and everywhere completely unnatural’.55 What was considered as natural was thus far from universal. Customs thought of as natural for men and women in one time or place, could be regarded as unnatural in another.56 This was the case, for instance, according to an article from 1796, with the custom of the ancient Gauls giving women the choice to propose: ‘this freedom, albeit natural for them, we would not expect or wish to be restored or introduced among the lethargic inhabitants of the North.’57 It is important to emphasise the way in which the natural was conceptualised in the eighteenth century, since the qualities ascribed to men and women were naturalised during the same period. Characteristics attributed to the natural differences between men and women were in the same process linked to specific nationalities, ethnicities and religions.58 The Nordic area was described as being harsh and difficult to master compared with other areas. The environment and the climate were gendered in the same way as the past was regarded as masculine and contemporary time effeminate. According to a wide range of famous thinkers – from Aristotle to Rudbeck and Montesquieu – the cold climate of the North brought about braveness and strength, and the harsh conditions were commonly regarded as the source of masculine characterisations of nations in early-modern travel literature.59 The severe and cold Nordic landscape matched a masculine nation, not the effeminate lifestyles that were regarded as spreading almost epidemically in Swedish society. Many late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century texts urged men and women to stay true to their specific natures and history.60 Humans were, like animals and plants, considered to live morally when their conduct was   Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1797, IV bandet, III stycket, s. 107–108. Parts of this article were translations from German. 56   This was also a main argument in Françoise Marguerite Janiçon’s contribution to the debate on the sumptuary laws of 1766 (Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, p. 233). See also, e.g., Maja Larsson, Den moraliska kroppen: tolkningar av kön och individualitet i 1800-talets populärmedicin, Hedemora, 2002, Chapter 3. 57   Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1796, III bandet, II stycket, pp. 40–41. 58   For example, Larsson, Den moraliska kroppen. 59   Frängsmyr, Klimat och karaktär, pp. 22–26; Anna Suranyi, ‘Virile Turks and Maiden Ireland: Gender and National Identity in Early Modern English Travel Literature’, Gender & History, Vol. 21, No. 2, August 2009, p. 243. 60   This argumentation shows many similarities with the discussions on marriage and divorce in revolutionary France, explored by Suzanne Desan. (Suzanne Desan, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France, Berkeley 2004.) 55

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in accordance with their true nature. The definitions of human nature, nation and gender were thus tightly interwoven. The corrupted male and female stereotypes brought to light in these texts were considered to be part of a wider trend of social disorder and degeneration. Traditional boundaries and hierarchies risked being disintegrated and the recognisability of social groups declined. In a small publication from 1786 the protagonist, a man who had returned to Sweden after some years abroad, reflected on his attempts to find a wife. He thought he had seen a couple of prospects in the street but a friend informed him that they were maids. He was horrified having been so wrong when judging their status from their clothes, and surprised by how much customs had changed during his absence. Servants’ salaries were high, his friend explained, and maids sometimes borrowed their mistress’s clothes. The protagonist also concluded that he could not court a daughter of a merchant or an artisan, even though such women would suit his social standing. He simply would not be able to provide for such a wife, since women had developed such expensive habits and went about ‘dressed as peacocks’.61 A fear of social disruption and change in the social hierarchy was articulated in this text, as well as in many others.62 Some people tried to imitate others of higher social standing by dressing and acting like them. Given that people were still expected to marry within their own social group, the increasing difficulties in recognising a person’s status from their attributes and behaviour could pose a pressing practical problem. Whether a real potential for social mobility existed (as if salaries of servants rose significantly) or if it was only the superficial appearance (as in the case with the maid who borrowed her mistress’s clothes), obscurity of the social hierarchies and boundaries was depicted as a major obstacle. Luxury goods and foreign influences were often described as the roots of such social corruption and disorder. In the rhymed poem Aprils-narren from 1763, the consequences of ‘the well-established science of fashion’ were depicted: Let the harlot be anointed with the oil of chastity [… Let] farm-hands become masters and kitchen-maids become mistresses […] the clock strikes midnight, when it ought to strike seven […] Sweden harbours idlers / greed is maturing and time is expensive / for all of this comfort is blamed.63

  En resande mans tankar, som ärnar gifta sig i Stockholm …, Stockholm, 1786.   Christer Ahlberger provides many examples expressing similar concerns found

61 62

in local official reports. (Ahlberger, Konsumtionsrevolutionen, pp. 128–147.) For similar examples from other parts of Europe, see, e.g., Maza, ‘Luxury, Morality and Social Change’; Sturkenboom, ‘Historizing the Gender of Emotions’; Wahrman, The Making of the Modern Self. 63   [Johan Stagnell] Aprils-narren, beskrifven af Heraclito Democritulo, Stockholm, tryckt hos Peter Hesselberg, 1763.

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It was not uncommon among commentators to state that the social order was turned upside down by foreign customs and goods, as in the cited satire. This also relates to the notion of how customs and traditions of different people should be governed by their specific historical and geographical conditions. Occasionally the question of how to distribute scarce and limited recourses of the country was addressed. Samuel Cronander contrasted the luxury consumption of upper-class women with the simple habits of the peasants. A ‘beauty’ who only ate a little but still consumed in proportion to her ‘higher and nobler birth and upbringing’ wasted in a few cups of coffee and expensive liqueurs what would have been enough for a handful of strong men and brave artisans.64 Thus, the conspicuous consumption of upper-class women risked throwing common working men into poverty. The hard work of Swedish men – the miner who ‘mines and carry the heavy ore with a danger to his life’, the peasant and the blacksmith ‘weighted by the hardest work in the world’ – were in another part of the same text described as being exchanged for ‘foreign superfluities […] which would be consumed by ten to twelve useless people in one evening’. Cronander cogently contrasted those who suffered from their wealth against those who suffered from poverty: ‘One alarmed the apothecary for digestive drugs; the other attacks the kitchen door for a piece of bread!’65 Unlike the example in the previous paragraph, in which the social order was turned upside down, the latter example illustrates an exaggeration, almost a vulgarisation, of the social order. Another aspect of social disorder were the descriptions of how the flamboyance of urban life risked attracting and degenerating people from rural areas. The countryside would be depopulated and impoverished, and those who moved into towns would be corrupted by city life and end up in poverty and misery.66 In contrast to many other European countries, the Swedish countryside harboured a politically important group as peasants were represented in the Diet as a separate estate, and thus the spreading of this type of social corruption also posed a political problem. In a didactic story from 1799, a commentator described a peasant wife and her son going to the local market town. There the wife saw ‘the pageantry, costume jewelry, tea- and coffee arrangements of the city ladies’ and the son noticed the ‘cockiness, volubility and clever pranks of the burgher children’.67 As soon as they came home, the wife wanted the farm to be completely reorganised. She demanded that her husband, the peasant Sven, have his beard removed (a significant symbol   [Cronander, Samuel] Wägwisare til Norje […], Stockholm, 1762, p. 6.   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm,

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1763, pp. 25–26. 66   For example, Johan Frederic Kryger, Svar på frågan: Om svenska folket denna tiden är av – eller tilltagande i kristliga seder …, Uppsala, 1782, pp. 6, 9. 67   [Magnus Orrelius] Saga, eller samtal emellan en bonde och dess twenne grannar, som lärer huru oförsiktigt det är at icke antaga förnuftiga råd, och huru man genom en sjelfklok hustrus förförande kan råka i armod och förakt, Gävle, 1802.

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for peasants) and get her ‘flashier clothes, a snuff box, and cups for tea and coffee’ because, as she said: ‘I cannot tolerate that a poor burgher’s wife lives in a better manner than I do, who is a wealthy and honest peasant woman’.68 The son, in turn, thought his father should be able to provide him with a better education. It was a shame – the son argued – that he could not ‘dance, compliment and converse, as any poor student in town’.69 Jealousy and the desire to emulate people in the town afflicted both the wife and her son in the story. The peasant, Sven, initially refused to comply with his family’s wishes, but he still hesitated and asked his neighbours for advice. One of them, ‘a grumpy and sullen, but honest neighbor’, advised him to continue with his old lifestyle, adhering to common sense and God’s teaching. The other neighbour, a polite but cunning peasant named Bertil, thought Sven should follow his wife’s wishes. Bertil motivated his advice: The world should, the longer the more, be populated, polite and polished, developed in its external customs, and refined in its reason. And town people understand this better than we stupid rustics, because they travel around the world and gather a variety of useful sciences in foreign nations.70

Sven actually thought the advice of the grumpy neighbour was wiser, but despite this he began to socialise with Bertil because he was such a friendly and nice person. The more time he spent with Bertil, the more he gave in to his wife’s wishes and demands, and soon he had hired both a barber and a teacher from town: ‘The former would remove his own rustic roughness; the latter would take it away from his children.’ The family’s new lifestyle became expensive and Sven was soon forced to take loans. Bertil willingly lent him the money, and in a short while Sven was forced into poverty. His wife’s new lifestyle resulted in her neglecting the household, and his children became ‘too stylish and incompetent to do peasant labour’. Sven eventually lost his property to the cunning neighbour Bertil, and his children became ‘arrogant idlers, who could not support themselves’, even less care for their poor old parents. Sven, an initially independent and prosperous peasant, thus ended up as a beggar. The story can be interpreted as a condensed description of what was likely to happen with large parts of the population and the country as a whole, as a consequence of the influx of luxury goods and foreign influences. It vividly illustrates the fear of reprehensible customs spreading from urban to rural areas, from burghers to the wealthier parts of the peasant population. Women and young people were depicted as easily impressed and duped. Ultimately, and fuelled by bad advice, it could be applicable to honest and upright farmers as well, resulting in total financial ruin and disaster for the whole country. The life’s work of the   [Magnus Orrelius] Saga, eller samtal …, Gävle, 1802.   [Magnus Orrelius] Saga, eller samtal …, Gävle, 1802. 70   [Magnus Orrelius] Saga, eller samtal …, Gävle, 1802. 68 69

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peasant and his forefathers – his landed property and his children – would be lost, and the backbone of what was depicted as ancient Swedish freedom – the ideal of the independent peasant – would be broken. The social disorder emerging in the wake of luxury consumption was thus regarded as an obvious danger to the traditional organisation of society. Social recognisability was endangered and with it the legitimacy of the hierarchical and corporative foundation of the early-modern society. The purpose of disciplining the middling orders – the efforts in persuading its men and women to abstain from extensive consumption – aimed not least at preventing the lower strata of society from adopting a lifestyle that, due to the size and sometimes more fragile economy of the lower urban and the peasant populations, was thought to entail enormous consequences, eventually overthrowing the social order that favoured the emerging middle class. Compatriots, Shun the Effeminising Lustfulness! What should people do, then, to avoid the dangers emanating from the influx of foreign products and new ideas? As late as 1828, it was expressed in these terms: How can this evil become redressed, and our unnecessary, excessive, disguised and deleterious lifestyle become changed, or restored, to another, in accordance with reason and true enlightenment? What enables us to exterminate the weeds of vanity, nowadays so deeply rooted? […] I only know two measures, which could do this – and they are exemplars and prohibitions.71

These particular measures were often emphasised in the public debate. Different kinds of legislation, such as import restrictions and sumptuary laws, were offered as means to combat the import and consumption of luxury goods. More than 50 sumptuary laws were issued in Sweden during the eighteenth century, and the Swedish state – unlike many other countries – continued to issue sumptuary laws until the 1820s, even though their success was seriously questioned, and they were already disregarded and passively resisted by the middle of the eighteenth century.72 The other measure suggested to strengthen morals and improve education was through exemplars. One commentator, for instance, stressed that a good education based on religion, virtue and law was absolutely necessary in preventing the ‘moral destitution of the time.73 By referring to ancient heroes, commentators expressed an expectation that the same courage and strength should be shown by contemporary men. Cronander urged, as I have mentioned, his ‘brave and brisk countrymen’ to fight luxury and   En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828, pp. 54–55.   For example, Peterson, ‘Yppighets Nytta och Torftighets Fägnad’, p. 4. 73   For example, Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1795, I bandet, VI stycket, p. 220. 71 72

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foreign influences. He metaphorically recalled ‘Mrs Frugality’ who was ‘related to our greatest and most honest houses […] the daughter of virtue and wisdom’. She should be invited back to her country of birth leading the men to ‘exterminate the vicious arrival of luxury, laziness, poverty, arbitrary abundance, unstableness, fraud, bankruptcy and despair’.74 A somewhat later commentator called for similar deeds with the words: ‘Where do we now find this self-sacrificing, altruistic love for the country of birth and the humankind, this ultroneous desire to do good, this zeal for the public good – which once characterized the men and heroes of the North?’75 Some commentators also put their faith in women and challenged them to distance themselves from luxury, something that could lead to the reformation of both sexes: Imagine how surprised our flying puppets, dressed in foreign pageantry, would be, if their own sex rejected them […] Would not our fops and womanizers drop their feathers if they experienced that their idleness, their restless moves, their sloppy compliments, carney faces, foolish discourses, distasteful love songs, shallow pleasures, and crazy billy-leaps would be countered with obvious contempt.76

One of the few women participating in the Swedish public debate, Françoise Marguerite Janiçon, addressed women directly: ‘Amiable, but such weak sex! Bethink, that a great deal of bliss and ruin of society is a result of your behavior!’77 A periodical article from the 1790s, urged the educated – who would serve as models for others – to stand up and fight for a modest lifestyle and a revaluation of inner virtues in contrast to external ostentation: ‘Citizens! Join forces in making these two measures operate in our midst! To be sure we are descendants of a people once admired by its modesty; would we degenerate from them?’78 In a pamphlet concerning marriage and ‘disorderly pairing’ from 1806, the commentator complained that an increasing proportion of the population were afraid to get married as they did not think they could afford the emerging expensive customs. He nevertheless addressed his readers with hope: Why not be the first to show the strength of a decent view and put an end to the fetters of foreign morals, which have to be broken anyway, if not society’s

  [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, pp. 24–25. 75   En svensk mans reflexioner om giftermål […], Jönköping, 1828, p. 34. 76   [Samuel Cronander] Förklaring öfwer Wägwisaren til Norje […], Stockholm, 1763, pp. 34–5. See also for example Medborgerlige Ämnen. Til Nöje och Nytta För Landtoch Stads-Män, Stockholm, 1771, p. 77. 77   Quoted from Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, p. 236. 78   Skrifter af Sällskapet […], 1798, IV bandet V stycket, p. 185. 74

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welfare in the future will be buried under the ruins of an effeminate nation, which brought foreign things over foreign seas to the coasts of the fatherland just to ruin itself, and its once so honored, so confident by virtue and earnest manners.79

Honest men and virtuous women would then serve as exemplars to others. By turning against luxury, the perils of fashion and polite social life, they would promote moral improvement and thereby also (re)create an economically and politically stronger nation. Promoting Future Harmony The Swedish public debate was, as I have shown, besieged with worries about the changing lifestyles of men and women, which in turn was fuelled by the growing influx and distribution of new types of foreign products and customs in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The consequences of increasing luxury consumption and new types of pleasures were repeatedly debated in a wide variety of texts and genres. Since this was a general European phenomenon, it can be argued that the debate on luxury constituted in itself an aspect of the cosmopolitanism of eighteenth-century Sweden. The Swedish debate, however, seems to have been even more focused upon criticising and agonising over the effects and consequences of changing consumption patterns than those of Britain, Germany and France. In some respects the Swedish discourse was characterised by continuity, as luxury critique continued to be a fiercely discussed topic in relation to gender well into the nineteenth century. This can be explained by the fact that Sweden was not particularly commercialised during this period, and that economic life was strictly regulated by the state and guilds until the mid nineteenth century. In spite of constitutional changes – the Age of Liberty 1718–1772, the Gustavian time with periods of almost absolutist monarchical rule 1772–1809, the coup d’etat of 1809 and the new constitution of the same year – the traditional estates remained the foundation for political representation until 1866. Therefore it is not surprising that the public concerns over lifestyles that were considered to increase the risks of social and economic disruptions lasted well into the nineteenth century. Simultaneously, though, it is apparent that commentators during the latter part of the eighteenth century no longer put their faith in sumptuary laws and prohibitions. Although some writers still advocated bans and regulations of various kinds, they increasingly proposed alternative strategies by which to overcome the perceived escalation of moral decay in Swedish society. The purpose of these texts was both to influence public opinion on current political issues – as, for 79   Några strödda ord i hast, om äktenskapet, oordentliga sammanlefnaden emellan begge könen och den senares inflytande på samhället, Carlskrona, 1806, p. 18.

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example, in relation to the sumptuary laws of 1766 or to the privileges given to the Swedish East India Company in the same year – and to encourage long-term moral revival: to make people act in accordance with the moral ideals advocated by the commentators. The arguments put forth by the social commentators, vividly depicting a country and its people in urgent need of moral restitution and societal development, were communicated in anything from serious political debate to humorous satire, sapient marriage advice manuals and popular historiography in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, along with the concerns expressed in the debate there was also a fundamental optimism. Sweden was considered to be rich in natural as well as in moral resources, and as long as the most effective methods to manage and exploit these resources were deployed, the future seemed bright.80 One of the lessons taught in the texts analysed here was that if Swedish men and women succeeded in avoiding being lured astray, and instead chose the righteous path shaped by national history, nature and God, harmony in society would be achieved. A consensus would emerge between the demands of nature, nation and morals, as well as between men, women and different social groups. Moral ideals were constructed by stressing differences: between men and women, urban and rural areas, different social strata, and between Swedish and foreign peoples. Threats were often formulated in terms of the perceived differences becoming less articulated and muddled. Customs and luxury goods of other countries were corrupting the Swedish people, with boundaries between social groups evaporating and being transgressed, the prodigality of urban areas spreading to the countryside, women seizing power in the households and men being effeminised. Images of ridiculous and reprehensible (un)male and (un)female stereotypes were used as deterrent exemplars in the struggle for moral improvement, and thus became powerful symbols and arguments in key economic and political debates of the period. These images were critical in the creation of the gender ideals that came to characterise the nineteenth century, and the values inherent in them were thus presented as the foundations of future society, not only morally but also socially, economically and politically. The discussion on masculinity in these texts did not include all types of men. Typically, wealthy urban scenes were depicted with men belonging mainly to the educated elite and the emerging middle class. It was men from these social strata – sometimes also including the upper strata of the freeholding peasants – who were thought of as the ideal citizens, and thus it was the actions of these men which threatened to ruin the nation. They belonged to the relatively small group of people regarded as potentially independent and hence qualified as economic, moral and political subjects. However, to succeed in this role so that it properly benefited the realm, and society as a whole, these men had to choose a way forward between the house tyrant and the henpecked husband, between the fop and the stupid rustic. According to strong opinions expressed in the debate, the men who would bring   For a discussion on natural resources, see the chapter by Mats Morell in this book.

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about the society of the future had to take responsibility and act in an honest and trustworthy way. They had to be guided by concern for the public good, not by their own self-interest and passions. Thus, social commentators pointed out their own social group – comprising the educated and wealthy – as the potential bearers of moral decay. Their own selfdisciplining was the recipe for the success of the realm. It may seem paradoxical that they accused themselves of being the main problem, rather than the old aristocracy or the common populace.81 But it is not so strange. First, the fate of the realm was intertwined in these texts with the actions of this group. In that respect, the debate was in itself a tool in the formation of these men as the model citizens of civil society. Secondly, the texts concerned the alignment of their own ranks: in legitimising their rule in civil society the men of the social middle strata had to be disciplined and moulded into responsible citizens, fathers and husbands. Social status was not, however, at the core of the debate; rather, it was the morals of these men and their families. As Sarah Maza has concluded for late eighteenthcentury France, the language of moeurs was a socially located discourse, reflecting anxieties in the upper levels of society, but it did not seek the answers in ‘the leadership of a middle class or gentry but in the moralistic universalism conveyed by concepts such as family, moeurs, or patrie’.82 The ideals of masculinity stressed in the Swedish debate around 1800 were strikingly similar to the male ideals advocated in the British and German debates of the same period.83 In England, a rough but honest and genuine masculinity associated with ancient English traditions was contrasted with a polite masculinity weakened by French customs, fashion and the need to please women. The English chivalric ideal man was flanked by a weak woman in need of his protection, and these notions of masculinity and femininity were, according to historian Michèle Cohen, the gender ideals that came to dominate in the nineteenth century.84 We can easily recognise the chivalric man from the Swedish debate, but the sensible, honest and industrious Swedish woman definitely appears to be a more robust and independent female ideal than the English equivalent. Furthermore, the negative effects of luxury, new pleasures and changed patterns of consumption were not as clearly associated with women and femininity in the   Cf., for example, John Shovlin, ‘The Cultural Politics of Luxury in EighteenthCentury France’, French Historical Studies, Vol. 23 (Fall 2000); Sturkenboom, ‘Historizing the Gender of Emotions’. 82   Maza, ‘Luxury, Morality and Social Change’, p. 228. 83   For example, Michèle Cohen, ‘“Manners” Make the Man: Politeness, Chivalry, and the Construction of Masculinity’, Journal of British Studies 44 (April 2005); Karen Hagemann, ‘The First Citizen of the State. Paternal Masculinity, Patriotism, and Citizenship in Early Nineteenth-Century Prussia’, in Stefan Dudink, Anna Clark and Karen Hagemann (eds), Representing Masculinity: Male Citizenship in Modern Western Culture, New York, 2007, pp. 67–88. 84   Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity; ‘“Manners” Make the Man’. 81

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Swedish debate. Instead, men – as husbands and fathers – were held responsible for the behaviour of women, since women’s excessive consumption and pleasures were associated with the problem of men not upholding their authority as household masters. Hence, the household as the power base for chivalric masculinity does not seem as unproblematic in the Swedish case as Cohen argues for the English one. The discourses analysed here not only shaped notions of gender, but also notions of class and nationality. Threats to the good society were claimed to derive from other countries – in the form of foreign customs, products and ideas – while the defence was formulated upon something defined simultaneously as naturally Nordic and traditionally Swedish. The ideal man was not only honest, responsible and diligent. He was also Swedish, like his trustworthy wife, his unadorned daughters, and capable sons. This kind of ideal family came in almost identical German, British and French versions. These gender ideals were thus, in spite of their supposed national foundations, rather products of a common European eighteenth-century culture. Standing out though, in the European context, is the ideal of the Swedish industrious, honest and sensible woman.

SLAVERY ‘There are no slaves in Sweden.’ Similar arguments could be found elsewhere in eighteenth-century Europe. Theologians and philosophers would claim that slavery was barbarian, uncivilised and in contrast to fundamental claims of both Christianity and the natural condition of humanity. At the same time, a totally different regime had been developed throughout the Atlantic world where millions of Black slaves had forcefully been moved from Africa to the Americas. Under the aegis of Dutch, English, French and Danish entrepreneurs and (sometimes) direct state involvement, the colonies in the Caribbean became the most valuable assets in the mercantile system. The Caribbean plantation economy was the engine driving the Atlantic world, with chattel slavery producing valuable products for an ever-increasing European market. Slave-produced commodities, such as sugar, coffee, tobacco and cotton, were also consumed in Sweden. The Swedish kingdom had never possessed ultramarine colonies, apart from a few decades in the mid seventeenth century. This situation changed in 1784 when King Gustav III received, in a treaty with the French, the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy. Sweden thereafter ranked among the colonial powers – and indirectly became a slave-owning nation at a moment when the anti-slavery movement started to gain momentum, especially in Britain. The contemporary abolitionist and critical rhetoric were certainly known among the newspaper- and book-reading Swedish audience. However, while one could be horrified about the slave regime in the Caribbean or in North America, few critical voices were raised in Sweden about its own involvement in both the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the prevalence of slavery on the Swedish island. The following chapter is an attempt to analyse the dual realities of the Swedish Caribbean island during the era of the slave trade. On the one hand, the colony, and especially the town of Gustavia, emerged as a cosmopolitan space. On the other hand, there existed the spaces of the Gens de Coleurs or mulatto population and the Black population. While the former included both free and unfree persons, the latter were always slaves.

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Chapter 12

A Divided Space: Subjects and Others in the Swedish West Indies during the late-Eighteenth Century Holger Weiss

Sweden acquired the West Indian island of Saint Barthélemy as part of a Treaty signed by King Gustav III and the French King on 1 July 1784. It was the realisation of long-standing Swedish ambitions to place the country on the map of the European colonial powers in the Atlantic world.1 Previous plans to establish a Swedish plantation colony either on one of the lesser islands or on the South American mainland – Tobago, Puerto Rico or Barima – had hitherto failed as neither the Spanish nor the French rulers were inclined to transfer their sovereignty rights over the areas to the Swedish Crown.2 In addition, several Swedish merchant houses endeavoured to participate in Atlantic trade, some of them even in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and there were the utopian ideas by the philanthropic and Swedenborgian circle around Carl Bernhard Wadström to establish a settler colony in West Africa,3 but none of these projects were successful and the Atlantic world remained closed for Swedish vessels until the latter half of the eighteenth century. The American War of Independence, however, changed the situation. Sweden was the first non-belligerent nation to recognise the independence of the former British North American colonies. The main ambition was to open a new market for the export of Swedish iron in North America, while Göteborg was projected to become the main entrepôt for the North American export trade to the Baltic and Russia. If direct trade between Sweden and North America could not

  On the background of the Swedish colonial project in the Caribbean, see Ingegerd Hildebrand, Den svenska kolonin S:t Barthélemy och Västindiska kompaniet fram till 1796, Lund 1951, and Jan Arvid Hellström, ‘… åt alla christliga förvanter …’ En undersökning av kolonialförvaltning, religionsvård och samfundsliv på S:t Barthélemy under den svenska perioden 1784–1878, Uppsala 1987. 2   C. Sprinchorn, ‘Sjuttonhundratalets planer och förslag till svensk kolonisation i främmande världsdelar’, Historisk tidskrift 43, 1923, pp. 109–162. 3   Ronny Ambjörnsson, Det okända landet. Tre studier om svenska utopister, Stockholm 1981, pp. 93–95; Lasse Berg, När Sverige upptäckte Afrika, Stockholm 1997, pp. 131–132. 1

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be established, an island in the Caribbean could serve as an outlet for Swedish, Caribbean and North American products.4 This study focuses on the establishment of a social geography based on the racial factor on Saint Barthélemy during the late eighteenth century. When the Swedish Crown took over the island it opened the doors for a new chapter in its history – Sweden ranked not only among the (minor) colonial powers but also as a nation of slave owners and slave traders. By 1800, the free port of Gustavia was one of the most cosmopolitan places controlled by the Swedish Crown. However, the cosmopolitan nature of Gustavia and Saint Barthelémy was complex and differed in many respects from that in mainland Sweden. Swedish port towns such as Göteborg, Stockholm or even Stralsund or Åbo were inhabited by varying numbers of local and foreign subjects. This was also the case in Gustavia, although with one exception – about half the population of the town and the island were slaves and freed slaves or so called Couleurs. Similar to the other Caribbean colonies, Saint Barthelémy was marked by a prism of hierarchical, gendered and coloured spaces. Although these spaces sometimes overlapped, the foundation of Caribbean colonial society was the regulated and controlled space that created and tried to enforce a political, social and gender hierarchy. The Caribbean Colonial System as a Regulated Space The basis of the Caribbean colonial system was a mercantilism where metropolitan interests controlled both the production and trade in the colonies. Colonial ports were, in principle, closed to foreign vessels. In peacetime this system worked reasonably effectively: the Caribbean islands and the Spanish American countries were closed to other nations’ ships unless they had special privileges to trade in certain ports. The American Declaration of Independence of 1776 therefore provoked a determined effort by the British to strangle the North American trade connections with the Caribbean. In addition, British planters and their metropolitan lobby were critical about the expanding and highly productive French sugar colony of Saint Domingue. While the British sugar islands had more or less reached their maximum output, the French colony was able to annually expand its production of colonial goods. After the Peace of Paris in 1783, therefore, the British objective was to block American and French ambitions. Such a situation created room to manoeuvre for the lesser European powers in the Caribbean, the Danish and the Swedes. Sweden entered the Caribbean scene at a crucial moment. After the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the British occupation of Saint Eustatius in 1781 (consequences of the American War of Independence), as well as the AngloFrench naval war, Atlantic shipping for all belligerent (apart the British) became 4   Leos Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce. The Swedish Consular Service and Long-Distance Shipping, 1720–1815, Uppsala 2004.

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problematic. Sweden and Denmark declared neutrality, and Swedish vessels were engaged in Atlantic tramp shipping until 1783. From the 1770s onwards, Sweden’s ambition was to become fully engaged in the Atlantic trade, especially to promote transit trade from North America via Sweden to the Baltic and Russia.5 The two pillars of the Caribbean colonial system were the slave plantations and the trade in colonial produce. The first one rested on the input of slave labour, while the second one on the endeavours of merchants and captains. Equally important for the plantation sector was the availability of arable soil to establish rentable production units, while the crucial location factor for the trade sector was the existence of a good harbour and shipping connections. While the two pillars were found on all of the Larger Antilles and on most of the Lesser Antilles, some of the latter islands were too small or too barren to provide a basis for a thriving plantation sector. This was, for instance, a handicap of Saint Thomas and Saint Jan in the Danish West Indies. However, a solution was to turn some of them into free ports. The initial question for the Swedish Crown was which system to choose for Saint Barthélemy.6 However, the foundation of this colonial system was race and skin colour. In contrast to the North American colonies, which evolved as settler colonies inhabited by a majority of White persons, the Caribbean colonies were plantation colonies with an overwhelming population of African-descent slaves, a lesser number of so-called Couleurs of mixed racial background, and a minor number of Whites.7 The subtropical climate in the Caribbean was regarded as unhealthy, if not hazardous, for Europeans. Previous centuries had taught that if those newly arrived to the islands did not adjust to the local climatic conditions, the inevitable outcome was death. Indentured servitude had provided White workers to the plantations in the seventeenth century, but these had to be replaced by the importation of African slaves in order to impose a profitable structure; the profits of the plantations and the rights of their owners were the priorities of the day. Slaves were merely ‘speaking tools’, listed among the inventories, and objects of the plantations, barely regarded as human beings, never as subjects. This resulted in the creation of two, if not three, social spaces on any of the Caribbean islands: a White, a Black

  Åke W. Essén, Johan Liljencrantz som handelspolitiker. Studier i Sveriges yttre handelspolitik 1773–1786, Lund 1928, pp. 78, 83, 180–184; Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce; Leos Müller, ‘Sweden’s neutral trade under Gustav III: The ideal of commercial independence under the predictament of political isolation’, in Koen Stapelbroek (ed.), Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, Helsinki 2011, pp. 156–157. A trade treaty between the USA and Sweden had been signed in 1783. 6   For further details, see Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern 1492–1800, London and New York 1997. 7   Philip D. Morgan, ‘The Caribbean Islands in Atlantic Context, circa 1500–1800’, in The Global Eighteenth Century, Felicity A. Nussbaum (ed.), Baltimore and London 2003, pp. 52–61. 5

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and a ‘Coloured’. The first had rights, while the two others had restrictions; they existed simultaneously – de jure separated but de facto overlapping.8 The Establishment of a Swedish Colony in the Caribbean The timing of the Swedish colonial aspirations was problematic. Swedish foreign trade had witnessed an upsurge during the eighteenth century, and Swedish vessels embarked on trade missions to the Mediterranean and to China. The Atlantic trade was small in comparison.9 Although the Swedish Atlantic trade expanded during the American War of Independence, it was negligible in comparison with, for example, the Danish trade.10 The idea of transforming a neglected spot into a regional hub became the key objective when Saint Barthélemy was discussed at the King’s Court in August and September 1784. The various proclamations that were issued at this point were to lay the foundations of Swedish colonial ambitions. None among those who outlined the plans had any experience of how to establish, organise or administer a colony; on the other hand, information about Danish or Dutch, French or British could easily be obtained from the literature or informants. Some conditions were fixed. The Swedish-French Tractate of 1784 already stipulated that the former subjects of the French King were to keep their rights and Catholic creed.11 At first sight, this stipulation was a breach of the prevailing Swedish Law: the Lutheran creed was the only allowed religion in the country. However, the reign of Gustav III had marked an opening in the religious sphere and, based on the new idea of religious tolerance from the Enlightenment as much as an attempt to invite foreign know-how, Reformists, Catholics and Jews were allowed to settle in certain towns in Sweden.12 However, the French Catholics on Saint Barthélemy were not foreign immigrants but had become Swedish subjects. Second, as will be discussed below, the new subjects were also slave owners. A seemingly complex contradiction had arisen: while slavery,

  See Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400–1900, Cambridge 2009. 9   See Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce. The upsurge in Swedish foreign trade correlates with the expansion of the Swedish merchant fleet; during the mid 1780s, Sweden was one of the largest carriers. See Müller, ‘Sweden’s neutral trade’, p. 152. 10   Essén, Johan Liljencrantz som handelspolitiker, pp. 180–181. 11   Convention between Sweden and France transferring ownership of Saint Barthélemy, 1 July 1784, in: Saint Barthelemy and the Swedish West India Company. A Selection of Printed Documents, 1784–1814. Facsimile Reproductions With an Introduction by John B. Hattendorf, Published for the John Carter Brown Library by Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, Delmar, New York, 1994. 12   Hellström, ‘… åt alla christliga förvanter’, pp. 50–52, 67–68. 8

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or rather serfdom, had already been abolished in Sweden in 1334, the Swedish King now ruled over an island where his subjects had the right to own slaves. Neither religion nor slavery was, however, an obstacle for the fulfilment of the Swedish plans. Instead, the Royal Instructions to Baron Salomon Mauritz von Rajalin (1757–1825) for his nomination as Commandant and Governor on the island, given on 22 September 1784, ordered him to declare to the inhabitants that their religion and property rights were not to be changed. However, his first and foremost objective was to lay the foundations for the economic development of the colony, namely the establishment of a free port.13 The key proponent of a Swedish free port in the West Indies was Johan Liljencrantz, at that time Gustav III’s leading counsellor.14 The preference for restrictions on foreign merchants and vessels had long been debated in Sweden. A first move had been the introduction of the so-called produktplakatet in 1724 which, similar to the English Navigation Acts, was meant to block the import of goods on foreign vessels into Sweden. However, the trade restrictions were attacked by various parties in the Swedish Diet during the mid eighteenth century, among others the group around Anders Chydenius which proposed the abolishment of all trade restrictions in Sweden.15 The immediate focus of the Swedish governor in March 1785 was on the creation of a new space: the free port. Governor von Rajalin’s key objective was to attract foreign traders to the island. He therefore proclaimed free entry for all nations into the island harbour in April 1785.16 This ordinance was extended and published as the Royal Proclamation of 7 September 1785 declaring Saint Barthélemy a free port;17 the English and French versions were thereafter distributed throughout the Caribbean to promote the Swedish project.18

  Kungl. Maj:ts nådiga instruktion för öns förste svenske guvernör, 22.9.1784, Swedish National Archives (hereafter: SNA) Saint Barthélemy Samlingen (SBS) 1 A. 14   Liljencrantz’s activities are highlighted in Hildebrand, Den svenska kolonin, pp. 90–91. See also Müller’s chapter in this volume. 15   Lars Magnusson, ‘Mercantilism and “reform” mercantilism: The rise of economic discourse in Sweden during the eighteenth century’, History of Political Economy 19:3, 1987, pp. 415–433; Lars Magnusson, Sveriges ekonomiska historia, Stockholm 1997, pp. 248–258. See also Carola Nordbäck’s contribution in this volume. 16   Ordinance allowing free entry to all vessels of every Nation in the Port of the Carenage, given St. Batholomew April 16, 1785, in Report of Saint Bartholomew (hereafter: RSB) 103, 18.4.1807. Also available at http://www.memoirestbarth.com/st-barts/traitenegriere/archives-legislation#2 (18.2.2011). 17   Kongl. Maj:ts Nådiga Kungörelse, som förklarar Ön St. Barthelemy i Westindien för en Fri Hamn eller Porto Franco, published in Hattendorf 1994. Also available at http:// www.memoirestbarth.com/st-barts/traite-negriere/archives-legislation#3 (18.2.2011). 18   Per Tingbrand, ‘A Swedish Interlude in the Caribbean’, Forum Navale 57, 2002, p. 67. 13

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The Royal Proclamation of September 1785 guaranteed three rights for any trader who settled on the island: freedom of trade, freedom of religion and protection of indebted persons. Administrative and governmental matters were further regulated through the establishment of the Swedish West India Company (SWIC) in October 1786.19 The Company itself was given substantial trade concessions, although never a total trade monopoly on the island. Most important, however, was the transfer of political and economic power into the hands of the Company. The salary of all members of the public sector, apart from the Governor and the military garrison, was to be paid by the Company. In return, the Company was given the right to collect customs duties and other tariffs as well as the capitation dues.20 Two out of eight members in the Governor’s Council were representatives of the SWIC. This meant that four members of the Council were Swedes, namely the Governor, the Justiciary and the two representatives of the SWIC; the four others represented the local inhabitants of the island.21 Sweden’s Most Multicultural and Cosmopolitan Town Saint Barthélemy was little more than a barren rock when von Rajalin took possession of the island. The island’s inhabitants numbered 749 persons: 458 Whites, 10 free ‘Couleurs’ and 281 ‘Negroes’. The only settlement was Saint Jean, consisting of a few houses, but anchorage was not good in that part of the island. The inhabitants were poor and did not produce much apart for their subsistence and a little cotton. On the other hand, the bay in the southeast was an excellent natural harbour and served for wintering the boats. The place was called Le Carenage.22 Rather than turning Saint Jean into a Swedish settlement and port, von Rajalin chose Le Carenage as the site for the Swedish colonial project. The colonisation and transformation of Le Carenage started in March 1785. Some six months later, 20 houses had been built and a cosmopolitan place was in creation, including English, Dutch and French merchants. It was a typical Caribbean colonial

  On the establishment of the SWIC, its charter and its concessions, see Hildebrand, Den svenska kolonin, pp. 93–95, 117–121. 20   Kongl. Maj:ts Nådiga Privilegium Til Uprättande af et Swenskt WestIndiskt Handels=Compagnie, gifwet Upsala Slott then 31 October 1786, facsimile in Hattendorf 1994. 21   Kongl. Maj:ts Nådiga Reglemente, Angående Styrelsen å Ön St. Barthelemy i West=Indien, 31.10.1786, English version in RSB 31, 15.12.1804. 22   Chevalier de Durant, ‘Observations about the Island of St Bartholomew’, undated (ca. 1785), translated into English by Per Tingbrand and published in Tingbrand 2002, pp. 65–66. A similar description of the conditions on the island when the Swedes took over is found in Sven Dahlman, Beskrifning om S. Barthelemy, swensk ö uti Westindien, Stockholm 1786, republished in Bengt Sjögren, Ön som Sverige sålde, Göteborg 1966. 19

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settlement; food, water, fruits, bread, wood, lumber, shingles, bricks, furniture, etc. had to be brought from the other islands and North America.23 In 1787, Le Carenage was renamed Gustavia, after the Swedish king, as a manifestation of the fulfilment of the Swedish colonial project. In 1788, Gustavia was visited by two Swedes, Christopher Carlander and Bengt Anders Euphrasén. Both left descriptions of the cosmopolitan scene they witnessed in Gustavia. Carlander listed Englishmen, Frenchmen, Swedes, Dutch, Danes, North Americans, Spaniards and Germans, who had either come from Europe or were Creoles, i.e., born in the Caribbean.24 Euphrasén, in his turn, recognised that the Caribbean categorisation and taxonomy of people also applied on Saint Barthélemy and in Gustavia, namely the dichotomy between Whites, at least seven categories of ‘Couleurs’, including ‘Sambo’, ‘Mulat’, ‘Mestive’, ‘Quarteron’, ‘Greif’, ‘Quinteron’ and ‘Blanc’, and Blacks. The last group, Euphrasén noted, was divided into slaves who had been born in Africa and those born in the Caribbean, i.e., the so-called ‘Creole Negroes’.25 The establishment of Gustavia resulted in the formation of two spaces –urban and rural– on the island. On the one hand, there was the Swedish cosmopolitan town, in 1788 inhabited by 656 persons. On the other, there was La Campagne, the French-dominated countryside with some 1,007 inhabitants.26 The cornerstone in the Swedish appropriation of the island was its mapping. This task was given to Samuel Fahlberg, who served as both a doctor and a Governmental Secretary. His most important task was to provide a ground plan for Gustavia, a master plan for the transformation of the barren landscape into an ordered and regulated space. The town was to have a rectangular outline (see Figure 12.1) and the streets and quarters were given Swedish names, such as Drottinggatan (Queen’s Street) or Fiskgränd (Fish Alley).27 The attempt to regulate and outline the construction of a town in the West Indies was not a Swedish invention or novelty. The Danes, for example, had some 40 years earlier established a new settlement on St Croix, Christiansted. As the guidelines for that process, the Danish government had issued a building ordinance in 1747. Apart from regulating the size of the quarters and the building materials, the building code also prescribed the racial division of the built-up area.   Dahlman, Beskrifning, pp. 17–18.   (Christopher Carlander), Resan till S:t Barthélemy. Dr Christopher Carlanders

23 24

resejournal 1787–1788. Anteckningar samlade och bearbetade av Sven Ekvall, färdigställda och utgivna av Christer Wijkström. Bidrag till Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens historia 13, Stockholm 1979, p. 74. 25   Bengt And. Euphrasén, Beskrifning öfver Svenska Vestindiska Ön St. Barthelemi, samt öarne St. Eustache och St. Christopher, Stockholm 1795, pp. 21–24. 26   Tingbrand, ‘A Swedish Interlude’, p. 68. 27   Gösta Franzén, Svenskstad i Västindien. Gustavia på Saint Barthélemy i språkoch kulturhistorisk belysning, Acta Academiae Regiae Scientiarum Upsaliensis/Kungl. Vetenskapssamhällets i Uppsala Handlingar 16, Stockholm 1974, pp. 32–38.

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Figure 12.1 Plan of Gustavia, c. 1799/1800

Note: This map was drawn by Samuel Fahlberg (1758–1834) who served as government doctor and surveyor on Saint Barthélemy from 1785 to 1810. He produced several projections for the town, the first in 1785, the last in 1807. All maps include references to the expansion of the built-up area of Gustavia. However, the coloured division of space or the living quarters of the Black and Mulatto population is missing in all of his plans – perhaps indicating that Gustavia lacked a demarcated racial segregation of space as existed, for example, on the Danish islands. Source: Samuel Fahlberg, Charta öfwer staden Gustavia, Swedish Military Archives, Stockholm.

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Free Coloured were to reside in a segregated area of the town, known as ‘Neger Gotthed’ or ‘Free Gut’. The residential segregation was also delineated in the maps of the town. As in Gustavia, the Danes also invited residents from both the British and the Dutch West Indian islands.28 While the influx of foreigners into Gustavia had been tremendous during the first two years after the foundation of the town, population numbers stagnated thereafter; in 1792, the town housed a mere 568 inhabitants. At the same time there were about 920 people in La Campagne.29 Population was declining and the colonial project was in crisis.30 Economically, both the colony and the Company were making a loss. But not only the Swedish island was in trouble – the whole Caribbean was uncertain about the future. The French revolution brought turmoil to the French islands, dividing the White population into Royalist and Republican camps, followed by riots and fighting. The destruction escalated further in 1791 when France abolished slavery. In 1793 the European conflict spilled over to the Caribbean when Britain tried to occupy Saint Domingue, Guadeloupe and Tobago; in 1795 they captured Martinique.31 The chaos on the French islands eventually proved a blessing for the Swedish colony. Gustavia became a safe haven for emigrants and refugees from the French Antilles.32 Once again, people started to settle in Gustavia, but this time the number of the immigrants was counted in hundreds and not tens. The increase of the urban population was dramatic: it rose to 987 in 1793 and 1,135 in 1794. At this point more than half of the island’s population lived in Gustavia.33 The 1790s were certainly a boom period for the Swedish colony, and by 1795 it seems as if Swedish intra-Caribbean trade was as large as the Danish.34 British statistics for the trade between 1788 and 1795 demonstrate that the annual mean as well as grand tonnage of ships from the Swedish colony was slightly larger than for ships from the Danish colonies entering British West Indian ports. In terms of economic value, the difference between the imports from the Swedish colony and those from the Danish colonies was even more impressive – according to British

28   Elizabeth Rezende, ‘In their own voices: Concerns leading to the collective political awareness of the Free Colored in Christiansted, St. Croix, former Danish West Indies, 1753–1816’, in Der Dänische Gesamtstaat – Ein unterschätztes Weltreich? The Oldenburg Monarchy – An Underestimated Empire?, Eva Heinzelmann, Stefanie Robl and Thomas Riis (eds), Kiel 2006, p. 222. 29   SNA SBS FO35-3-32791; Tingbrand, ‘A Swedish Interlude’, p. 69. 30   Sture M. Waller, ‘S:t Barthélemy 1785–1801. Yttre förhållanden; handelspolitik och statsfinansiell betydelse’, Historiskt arkiv 1, 1954, pp. 1–37. 31   Hellström, ‘… åt alla christliga förvanter’, pp. 76–77. 32   Governor Bagge’s report of June 28, 1793, translated in Tingbrand 2002, p. 69. 33   SNA SBS FO35-3-32791. 34   On Sweden’s neutrality policy during the eighteenth century, see Leos Müller’s contribution in this volume.

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statistics, the annual value of imports from the Swedish colony was almost twice the amount of the Danish imports!35 The increase in trade paralleled the expansion of Gustavia. In 1800 the population of the town reached its highest ever, at about 5,000 inhabitants, while another 1,000 lived in La Campagne. Gustavia was the fifth largest town in the Swedish kingdom. Nevertheless, the number of Swedes remained a tiny fraction, including the governor, the Lutheran priest, some administrative personnel, the representatives of the SWIC, soldiers, some sailors, captains and a few merchants; in total, seldom over 100 persons. The majority of the inhabitants spoke either French or English besides Dutch Creole, the common lingua franca in the Caribbean. Although the Swedish tongue was the official language of the administration, all official proclamations and acts were translated into English and French; the Governor’s Council as well as the Court rarely used Swedish as their working language. In language terms, the island was divided into two separate spaces, English and French. The former dominated the town and the merchant community,36 the latter the countryside and the émigré community.37 The three spheres – if one adds the Swedes – were usually fluid and overlapping: English and Swedish speakers could own plantations and gardens, and resided at least part of the year in the countryside. Many of the urban families were multilingual, as people would marry across the languages.38 The diverse and pluralistic conditions on the island were also reflected in the multiplicity of religions recognised and tolerated on the island. The Swedes belonged to the Lutheran congregation, the English-speaking population were either Anglicans or Methodists, while the Dutch belonged mainly to the Reformed Church. The majority of the population was, however, Roman Catholic. A Lutheran church had been built in Gustavia in 1787, but it was also used by Catholics and Anglicans.39 Initially, almost all Swedish inhabitants of the island were male. Some of them were married to women from other West Indian islands, such as Catherine Duchesal, wife of merchant Aron Åhman, Judith Beuver, wife of merchant Adolf Fredrik Hansen, and Maria Flougher, wife of pilot Peter Rydström; only a few of them were accompanied by their spouses from Sweden.40 Most of the Swedes who 35   Adrian J. Pearce, ‘British Trade with the Spanish Colonies, 1788–1795’, Bulletin of Latin American Research 20:2, 2001, pp. 241–242. 36   Karin Sandberg, ‘Brev från den avlägsna klippan’, Linköpings biblioteks handlingar. Ny serie, Band 17, Linköping 2003, p. 84; K. Decker, ‘Moribund English: The Case of Gustavia English, St. Barthelemy’, English World-Wide 25:4, 2004, pp. 217–254. 37   J. Maher, ‘Fishermen, farmers, traders: Language and economic history on St. Barthélemy, French West Indies’, Language in Society 25:3, 1996, pp. 373–406. 38   Sandberg, ‘Brev från den avlägsna klippan’, pp. 84–85. 39   Hellström, ‘… åt alla christliga förvanter’, pp. 99–101, 139. 40   Sven Thunborg’s Parish Books, ‘Kyrkobok som innehålla […] 2. Förteckningar på födde och döpte, sammanvigde och döde wid Swenska Evangeliska Lutherska församlingen

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arrived on the island during the first years , however, were either unmarried or had left their wives back in Sweden. In addition, the Caribbean climate was believed to be too arduous for women from Northern Europe.41 On the other hand, none of the Swedes or other male inhabitants lived without a female partner, and it was common to have a black or Couleur mistress or housekeeper.42 One of them was Mary Audin, who lived with Colonel Robert Montgomery, who had been exiled to the island for participating in the Anjala Plot against Gustav III. Together they had a daughter, Ulla, named after Montgomery’s wife.43 Usually the children of such relationships would not be recognised as legitimate heirs of their fathers, and Thunborg often remarked ‘father unknown’ in the baptism records. However, sometimes the name of the offspring could reveal the identity of their fathers, such as in the case of Ann Stockfish’s son Peter Aaron – one of the godfathers was Aron Åhman – or Peter Rosén, who was the son of the Mulatta Jenny Brozetter. Another case was the baptism of Baron John Otto von Pechlin’s two ‘natural’ Mulatto sons John Herman and William Fredrick in 1790 – in this case Thunborg did not mention the name of the mother.44 Although the Caribbean is usually portrayed as a white male’s world – in addition to male and female slaves – Carlander’s description of the economic activities in Gustavia in the late 1780s reveals that much, if not all, of the local retail trade was in the hands of coloured women, whereas several innkeepers were white women: the widow Anne Jordan, the Jewish lady Dewero and Madame Anna Westerberg. The latter, probably from Sweden, provided food for the Swedes but also acted as a butcher for the troops and the ships.45 The cosmopolitan complexion of Gustavia itself hardly differed from other towns in Sweden. Large groups of foreigners could also be found in Stockholm and Göteborg. In Stralsund, in Swedish Pomerania, the majority were German, while most of the inhabitants in the eastern part of the kingdom were Finns. What mattered was the legal position of the inhabitants – were they subjects to the Swedish king, governed by Swedish law, or not? Swedish Pomerania was an exception, with a local law, but Saint Barthélemy, too, was a special case. When the island was handed over to the Swedish king, the French inhabitants of La Campagne automatically became his subjects. On the other hand, only those inhabitants of på öen St. Barthelemy i West-Indien hållan under åren 1785-86-87-88-89 och 1790’, Roggebiblioteket, Strängnäs. 41   Euphrasén, Beskrifning, p. 26. 42   Carlander, Resan, p. 54. 43   See K.-G. Olin, Våra första Västindienfarare, [Jakobstad] 1990. 44   Sven Thunborg’s Parish Books, ‘Kyrkobok som innehålla […] 2. Förteckningar på födde och döpte, sammanvigde och döde wid Swenska Evangeliska Lutherska församlingen på öen St. Barthelemy i West-Indien hållan under åren 1785-86-87-88-89 och 1790’, Roggebiblioteket, Strängnäs. 45   Carlander, Resan, p. 80; Per Tingbrand, Who Was Who on St Barthélemy During the Swedish Period, Stockholm 2001, pp. 318, 583.

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Gustavia who had applied for naturalisation were the subjects of the Swedish king. The others, including the overwhelming majority of the émigré community, were not. Territorial barriers mattered little in the West Indies: merchants could own warehouses on different islands, and some of the more affluent inhabitants of Gustavia owned plantations on neighbouring islands as well. In sum, the distinguishing mark of Gustavia was its maritime and mercantile nature. Legally, the town existed in a vacuum as it lacked any royal privileges – all other towns that had been established in the kingdom of Sweden during Gustav III’s reign had received royal privileges. One could even claim that no town existed, but only a port on an island colony. The various royal proclamations and ordinances tried to regulate commerce. Legal, political and administrative principles of the colony were stipulated by the Royal Decree of 31 October 1786. The colony was to be governed by the Governor’s Council, which also handled all juridical matters; Swedish law, in addition to local customs of the West Indies, were to be applied at court.46 Customs and other duties were regulated by a Royal Proclamation the same year,47 an amended version being published in 1790.48 Only as late as 1798 was Gustavia mentioned in a legal regulation, when Governor Georg Johan Henrik af Trolle (1764–1824, governor from 1795 to 1801) issued his instructions for the nomination and duties of the aldermen of Gustavia. In the same vein, their assembly was introduced as the Chamber of the Aldermen of the Town.49 This decision marked the division of two legal spaces in the island, the town and the countryside, as the aldermen only represented the inhabitants of the town. Slavery and Swedish Colonial Aspirations The same year as King Gustav signed the treaty with France that placed Sweden among the colonial powers in the Caribbean, the Swedish publisher Samuel Ödmann printed an abridged version of Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp’s description of the conditions of the Negro population on the Danish West Indian islands.50 Oldendorp’s text depicted the harsh treatment of the slaves on the   Kongl. Maj:ts Nådiga Reglemente, Angående Styrelsen å Ön St. Barthelemy i West=Indien, 31.10.1786, English version in RSB 31, 15.12.1804. 47   Uppå ön St. Barthélemy komma de publique afgifterne under en tid af 10 år, beräknad ifrån den 1 Jan. 1786 till samma tid 1796, att på följande sätt beräknas och utgöras, 28.8.1786, English version in RSB 104, 4.7.1807. 48   Tulltaxa för ön St. Barthelemy, 12.3.1790, English version signed by Governor Bagge 9.12.1790 in RSB 104, 4.7.1807. Also available at http://www.memoirestbarth.com/ st-barts/traite-negriere/archives-legislation#17 (18.2.2011). 49   Instructions for the Aldermen of the Town of Gustavia, Gustavia 1.12.1798, printed in RSB 34, 12.1.1805. 50   C.G.A. Oldendorp’s history of the mission of the evangelical brethren on the Caribbean islands of St Thomas, St Croix and St John, first published in German as an 46

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plantations, as well as criticising the brutality and inhumanity of the slave trade. Other books criticising the slave trade and slavery, most notably Abbé Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes (1774), had been published in Swedish since the 1770s.51 Dramas, such as Dirik Gabriel Björn’s Westindie-Fararen eller Dygdens Belöning (1791), itself a translation of Mercier’s L’Habitat de la Guadeloupe (1782), critically depicted the greedy way of life in the West Indies, and the morally dubious way of making immense fortunes there.52 Anyone who read these books, or saw the plays, must have been aware that slavery was the glue of the colonial system in the Atlantic world. More than anyone else, Raynal’s description fuelled an increasing repertoire of critical publications condemning slavery and the slave trade throughout Europe. Even in Sweden, Raynal’s treatise, especially the chapters devoted to the American colonies,53 resulted in several articles criticising slavery.54 While Swedish newspapers in general were enthusiastic for the cause of the Americans, some even hailing the United States as the cradle of the Enlightenment,55 there also existed a critical reading of American society. One particularly harsh contribution was the article ‘Reflexioner i anledning af Doctor Franklin’, published in Pehr af Lund’s journal Tryck-Friheten den Wälsignade in January 1784. The main point of the author was to highlight the blatant discrepancy between the enlightened claims of the American Revolution and the realities of American society, namely that it rested upon slavery.56 On the other hand, sections of Swedish society, notably King Gustav III himself, were little affected by Raynal or the American Revolution. As Elovsson and others have outlined, while the King was at first sympathetic for the cause of the Americans – this being part of his self-image as a tolerant and enlightened ruler – he changed his mind by the late 1770s. In 1780, he revised his Ordinance of 1774 abridged version in 1777. The Swedish translation was published in 1786. See Joachim Mickwitz, ‘Från Västindien till de bottniska städerna – i salighet och nytta’, in Atlantiska religiösa nätverk. Transoceana kontakter, trossamfund och den enskilda individen i skuggan av slavhandeln, Holger Weiss (ed.), Nora 2010, pp. 53–58. 51   Åke Holmberg, Världen bortom västerlandet. Svensk syn på fjärran länder och folk från 1700-talet till första världskriget, Göteborg 1988. 52   Marie-Christine Skuncke, Sweden and European Drama 1772–1796. A Study of Translations and Adaptions, Acta Universitaas Upsaliensis. Historia litterarum 10, Uppsala 1981. 53   Abbé Raynal, Révolution de l’Amerique, Stockholm 1781; Harald Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, Samlaren, Nyföljd, Årgång 9, 1928a, p. 33. 54   ‘Hör hur en Engelsk Colonist i Amerika talar’, Göteborgska Nyheter 34, 21.8.1784; Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 38–43, 64–65. 55   Harald Elovsson, Amerika i Svensk litteratur 1750–1850, Lund 1930; Hildor Arnold Barton, ‘Sweden and the War of American Independence’, in Hildor Arnold Barton, Essays in Scandinavian History, 2009, pp. 49–50. 56   Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, p. 64; Elovsson, Amerika i Svensk litteratur, pp. 122–123.

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on the freedom of the press, and one of the first consequences was the banning of Abbé Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indies in 1781.57 Thereafter, publications in the Swedish press on the American Revolution and the cause of the Americans were as much a means of belabouring the government of Sweden and accusing the King for being a despot.58 The 1780s also witnessed the strengthening of abolitionist rhetoric, especially in Britain, resulting in the first modern popular movement for the abolition of the slave trade in the 1790s. One of the key activists on the British scene was Carl Bernhard Wadström, who had settled in London after a mission to Senegal in 1788. He had left Sweden with royal instructions to investigate the possibilities for Swedish engagement in the slave trade, but his negative experiences in Africa turned him into an ardent critic of the business. However, his engagement as an abolitionist, even his magnum opus Essay on Colonization (1795), left few traces in Sweden.59 Nevertheless, as Elovsson and Nyman have shown, there existed a Negrophile and abolitionist rhetoric in some Swedish magazines and newspapers, at least during the 1770s and 1780s. Inspired by Raynal, Lund’s previous journal Dagbladet: Wälsignade Tryckfriheten published several articles condemning slavery and highlighting the plight of the slaves,60 perhaps even inspiring individuals like Wadström.61 In Göteborg, the newspapers Göteborgs Allehanda and Hwas Nytt? Hwad nytt? published several critical articles on ‘Negro slavery’ in the West Indies and in America, condemning the harsh treatment of slaves as sadistic and the trading of slaves as barbarian and uncivilised.62 The abolitionist debate in the House of Commons in London during the early 1790s was closely followed by Swedish newspapers, among others the Stockholms Posten.63 Even the decision in 1792 of the Danish king to abolish the Danish slave trade in 1803 was noted,64 and in 1795 Paul Erdman Isert’s attack on the slave trade was published in Sweden.65 Most remarkable, however, is the fact that slavery and slave trade under the Swedish flag were not commented on in the press during all these years – almost as if such conditions did not prevail on Saint Barthélemy. 57   Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 43–44, 55; Elovsson, Amerika i Svensk litteratur, p. 120; Barton, ‘Sweden and the War of American Independence’, p. 56. 58   Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 57–62, 69–73. 59   Jonas Ahlskog, ‘The Political Economy of Colonisation: Carl Bernhard Wadström’s Case for Abolition and Civilisation’, Sjuttonhundratal. Nordic Yearbook for EighteenthCentury Studies 2010, pp. 146–167. 60   Elovsson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 64–65. 61   On Raynal’s influence on Swedish authors, see Anna Cullhed’s contribution in this volume. 62   Magnus Nyman, Upplysningens spegel. Göteborgs Allehanda om Frankrike och världen 1774–1789, Stockholm 1994, p. 165. 63   Stockholms Posten 1791, 1792. 64   Stockholms Posten 1792. 65   Holmberg, Världen bortom västerlandet, p. 63.

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On the contrary, treatises such as Ulrich Nordenskiöld’s Afhandling om nyttan för Sverige af Handel och Nybyggen i Indierna och på Africa (1776), and articles such as Johan Henric Kellgren’s Förslag till Nybyggens anläggande i Indien, och på Africanska Kusten in the Nya Handelsbiblioteket (1784) urged the king to do his utmost to place Sweden among the colonial powers and to establish a colony in the West Indies or Africa.66 Besides, the very first publication in Swedish on Saint Barthélemy, namely Sven Dahlman’s account from 1786, assured that the Negro slaves of the French colonists on the islands were treated fairly well. However, a careful reader would have been informed that slaves were used in the transformation of Le Carenage into a port; even more so: for the Swedish colony to prosper, additional Negroes were needed.67 The later descriptions of Carlander and Euphrasén told a similar story: the Swedish colony, like all the other Caribbean islands, was inhabited by slaves. What they had not mentioned was the fact that slavery was also the very backbone of the Swedish colonial project: without the slaves, Gustavia would never have been built (see Figure 12.2). Governor von Rajalin faced a dilemma in March 1785. He ordered the construction of a port and a town, but lacked the workforce needed for the realisation of the project. His solution was simple but effective. Each inhabitant of the island was compelled to send some of his slaves to the worksite.68 For a while the system worked fairly well, but after a month the flow of slaves to the worksite started to drop and the Governor issued two stiff reminders to the inhabitants about their obligation to provide enough slaves.69 His other plan was the clearance of the salt ponds on the island. However, the realisation of this project was dependent upon financial resources to cover the expenses of acquiring 80 new slaves. His government lacked such resources and he therefore sent an application to the Swedish Crown to put enough means at his disposal.70 Had he received the sum, the Swedish Crown would, at one stroke, have become the largest slave owner on the island! The use of slave labour was not a moral dilemma as such, but was part of the colonial system in the West Indies. Every colonial government owned and used slaves, and the Swedes were quick to apply the system. Nevertheless, there was a certain ambivalence in von Rajalin activities. Officially, he never claimed that the Swedish authorities were making use of slaves or even owned any. Instead, 66   Harald Elovsson, ‘Kolonialintresset i Sverige under slutet av 1700-talet’, Samlaren, Ny följd, Årgång 9, 1928b, pp. 207–208. 67   Dahlman, Beskrifning, pp. 11, 19, 23. 68   Proclamation utfärdad av guv. Baron von Rajalin den 12 mars 1785 sammankallande invånarna på ön till kyrkan den 20 mars, SNA SBS 1. 69   ‘Proclamation … making known the Governor’s displeasure with the unsatisfactory labour force so far put to the disposal of the Government’, 7.4.1785. The second reminder was dated 18 June 1785. Swedish translations of the texts in Per Tingbrand, ‘Saint Barthelemy 200 år’, Piteå Segelsällskaps Sjörulla 1984, pp. 126–128. 70   Rajalin’s report dated 15.8.1795, SNA SBS 1.

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he documented the use of slaves as ‘Negroes who had been ordered by the Government’ and stated that between 6 and 13 of them worked each week from April 1785 to June 1786.71 Was Rajalin trying to cover up the use and perhaps even the ownership of slaves by the Swedish Crown?72 Similar vague statements were put forward by the representatives of the SWIC, although in the list of losses after the British occupation in 1801 the Company claimed the loss of two Negroes (i.e., slaves).73 Rajalin himself, it seems, never owned any slaves. Some of his successors, as well as several members of the Swedish administrative personnel, such as Governor Carl Fredrik Bagge, Samuel Fahlberg, Justiciary Johan Norderling and Pastor Sven Thunborg, certainly did. In addition, all of the Swedish merchants and traders owned slaves, some even in substantial numbers, such as Simon Jacob Åhman, who was said to have owned several hundreds of slaves on his plantations on the neighbouring islands, or Adolf Fredrik Hansen, who was the owner of 26 slaves including eight females and six boys and girls.74 The ownership of slaves by Swedish inhabitants on the island was also a reflection of the general social stratification in the Caribbean. Gustavia was no exception in this regard. None of the Swedish sailors or soldiers was listed among the slave owners. Others, such as craftsmen or officials, did own slaves, as is revealed in Thunborg’s Baptist Records. Interestingly, he never used the word ‘slave’, rather ‘Negro’ and ‘Negress’, when referring to male and female slaves. In 1787, he had baptised the ‘Negress’ Maimimia’s son Samuel Gustaf – intriguingly, one of his godfathers was Samuel Fahlberg. A few months later, Carpenter Joseph Simon’s son Joseph Charles was baptised. His mother was the ‘Negress’ Betsy Howey.75 While it is likely that most of the slaves served as domestic servants, at least Pastor Thunborg and Aron Åhman were each claimed to own a cotton plantation in La Campagne, and they would certainly have left its cultivation to someone else.76 Not surprisingly, all owners of cotton plantations owned slaves. Dahlman’s   Förteckning på de Negres som blivit commenderade at arbeta vid gouvernementet 1785, 1786, SNA SBS 1. 72   In 1821, the Swedish Governor stated in a letter to King Charles XIV John that the slave James Duck, who had been bought in 1815, was the only slave owned by the Swedish Crown (Birger Wedberg, ‘Lag och rätt på S. Barthelemy’, in Birger Wedberg, Tärningskast om liv och död, Stockholm 1935, p. 84). 73   Dokument från kontoret på St Barthelemy 1790–1803, SNA HoS Västindiska kompaniet 176. 74   See Tingbrand, Who Was Who, passim. 75   Sven Thunborg’s Parish Books, ‘Kyrkobok som innehålla […] 2. Förteckningar på födde och döpte, sammanvigde och döde wid Swenska Evangeliska Lutherska församlingen på öen St. Barthelemy i West-Indien hållan under åren 1785-86-87-88-89 och 1790’, Roggebiblioteket, Strängnäs. 76   Carlander, Resan, p. 66. 71

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claim of mild treatment of the plantation slaves on the island might have reflected the situation in 1785 – a few years later, the conditions for the slaves described by Carlander hardly differed from those on other islands. They worked on the fields most of the day and were served a monotonous diet consisting of salted herring (sometimes Swedish) and cassava flour. Their housing was pathetic and dirty. When they were not needed in the fields, they could be rented by someone in the town.77 The Swedish period witnessed an exceptional increase in the slave population, and this can be linked to the Swedish colonial project of establishing a free port. While 281 slaves lived on the island at the beginning of 1785, at the end of the year there were already 408.78 Most of the new slaves were owned by merchants and others who had settled in Gustavia. Within 10 years the number of slaves more than doubled, amounting to 1,072. In addition, most of the slaves lived in Gustavia. In 1787, 415 slaves were registered in the countryside and 242 in the town; in 1794, those living in the countryside had increased to 518 while those in the town had increased to 554.79 However, as the increase in slaves matched that of the increase of the White and Coloured populations on the island, the proportion of slaves to the free population more or less remained stable, i.e., amounting to almost half of the total population. The total number of slaves continued to increase for almost two decades. A first peak in their number must have been in 1800, when there could have been as many as 2,700 slaves living on the island. Thereafter the strength of the slave community slightly decreased, but in 1812 was still as high as almost 2,500.80 The slave community in the Swedish colony was composed of three groups. First, there was the original, fairly stable unit of farm workers and servants of the French colonists. The growth of the port and the town resulted in the emergence of two new groups, namely the domestic servants and the harbour workers. Slaves were ordered by the government on a regular basis for public construction sites or to clean the streets.81 Evidently, with the expansion of the merchant community and the trade boom since the 1790s, most of the slaves were tied to activities linked to the export economy of the colony. In this respect, the conditions of slavery on Saint Barthélemy differed, for example, from those on the Danish islands. Although the economic rationale of Saint Thomas was based upon the free port of Charlotte Amalie, there still existed a plantation sector on the island. Saint Jan,     79   80  

Carlander, Resan, pp. 67–68. Rajalin’s report dated December 1785, SNA SBS 1. SNA SBS FO35-3-32791. Rolf Sjöström, ‘Conquer and Educate. Swedish Colonialism in the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy 1784–1878’, Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education 37:1, 2001, p. 73; Tingbrand, ‘A Swedish Interlude’, p. 75. 81   For example, 30 slaves were ordered in 1789 to construct quays and streets. See Ordinance concerning Quays and Streets, Extrait des Minutes tenues au Conceil Royal en l’Isle de St. Barthélemy à Séance du 19 avril 1789, printed in RSB 47. 77 78

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and especially Saint Croix, on the other hand, were genuine plantation colonies. Compared to the Swedish island, the Danish islands held substantial numbers of slaves at the end of the eighteenth century: 4,700 on Saint Thomas, 2,200 on Saint Jan and 25,000 on Saint Croix.82

Figure 12.2 View over Gustavia, c. 1793

Note: The complexity of the Swedish Caribbean experience is depicted in a colour drawing by Carl David Gyllenborg (1734–1811) from 1793. The picture gives a view over the harbour filled with sailing vessels anchored in the bay, houses and mansions bordering the waterfront from three sides, as well as the Swedish church and fort where the Swedish flag is hoisted. In the forefront, two female Black persons are sitting on the ground, seemingly resting. Further away, a White woman is walking together with a younger Black person along a path towards the town. The original painting was hanging in the office of the Swedish West India Company in Stockholm. Source: David Gyllenborg, Utsigten af staden Gustavia på Öen Barthelemy, Uppsala University Library.

82   See N.A.T. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, Mona 1992; Louise Sebro, Mellem Afrikaner og kreol. Etnisk identitet og social navigation i Dansk Vestindien 1730–1770, Lund 2010.

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The Swedish Slave Law The foundations of the colonial space in the Caribbean were legal and racial separation. Whites had rights and liberties; Black slaves, freed slaves and Couleurs faced obligations, restrictions and prohibitions. The unfree and the coloured population were to be controlled, resulting in the codification by law of three overlapping spaces on all West Indian colonies. On the Danish and French islands the separation was manifested through draconian slave laws, namely the Slave Ordinance by the Danish Governor of 1733 and the French Code Noir. While there existed no common English Slave Law for the West Indies, each of the Legislative Councils on the British islands had codified local regulations. The general objective for all slave laws was to control slave behaviour, and expressed the hegemonic power of the white dominant class. Slaves were viewed primarily as property, but also as individuals whose natural inclinations were depraved and inherently criminal. The Danish slave regulations, among others, had first and foremost been enacted to safeguard the plantation system and, similar to the French Code Noir, prescribed brutal penalties. About half of Governor Philip Gardelin’s Code of 1733 explicitly dealt with the punishment of runaway slaves and what was known as marronage. The death penalty was prescribed for the ringleaders, after torture with red-hot pincers at three separate locations. Runaway slaves were to receive 150 strokes and the loss of an ear in the presence of a Justice of the Peace. Additional penalties for theft and other offences varied from death and the amputation of legs to branding and whipping. Failure to show deference to whites was seen as a similar threat to the social order as marronage, and was punished as harshly. The separation of black and white spaces was further enforced by the establishment of a curfew for the slave population and the prohibition of all dancing, merrymaking or funeral rites involving the use of ‘Negro instruments’, although ‘small diversions’ were allowed on days when there was no work if the slaves had received the permission of their masters. An attempt by King Fredrik V to introduce minimum guidelines and standards for slave ratios of food, clothing and shelter in 1755 was never enacted on the islands; Gardelin’s Code, therefore, remained more or less intact until the 1830s, although the most brutal and harsh punishments were increasingly criticised from the 1780s.83 The Swedish engagement came at a point when the social order in the Caribbean was regulated by slave laws. Although the Swedish project could not dream of establishing a plantation society on Saint Barthélemy, slavery was still part and parcel of the social order and the Swedish authorities had to deal with the question of controlling the unfree population. Swedish Law did not have any regulations dealing with the control and punishment of slaves. The closest stipulations were the rulings concerning servants and farm workers, the tjänstehjonstadga of 1686. According to these rules, the head of a peasant household was in charge of the wellbeing of his subordinates, including the domestic and farm servants. He also   Hall, Slave Society, pp. 56–62, 65–70.

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had the right to physically correct them. The movement of servants and workers was restricted while working for a household. However, the length of work was stipulated by a contract, usually covering one year. In theory, the tjänstehjonstadga could have been used for regulating the slave order on Saint Barthélemy, although with one exception: contract workers were never owned; slaves never signed a contract. Another problem was the freed slaves and the so-called gens de couleurs libres. Were they to be counted as full subjects of the Swedish king with the same rights as the White population? The regulations concerning the nomination of the three members to the Governor’s Council of 1786 did not specify if the Couleurs were to be counted among those inhabitants who had the right to elect or not. The regulations remained unclear for decades until 1812, when the Board of Trade and Commerce declared that the Couleurs were to be excluded from the right of nomination and election. Only in 1822 were the Couleurs given the same rights as the Whites.84 In fact, the discrimination against the Couleurs had already been highlighted by Euphrasén, in 1795. The colour of one’s skin was the baseline. Only Whites enjoyed full rights; freed slaves and Couleurs, even the Blancs whose skin colour was as white as that of a European, North American or White Creole, were never regarded as full citizens according to Le Code de lois de la Martinique which was applied on Saint Barthélemy.85 However, the discrimination of the gens de couleurs libres affected an increasing number of the free inhabitants of the island. Their number was 97 in 1787; they amounted to 416 in 1796 and to 1128 in the peak year of 1812.86 The second-class citizenship of the Couleurs on Saint Barthélemy was similar to that on the other West Indian islands. On the Danish islands, for example, the Free Coloureds’ lifestyles, social standing and movement were restricted by law. They were to distinguish themselves by wearing red and white cockades, and to present their free papers certifying their freedom. While slaves had to observe an 8 p.m. curfew, Free Coloureds were to be off the streets by 10 p.m. (1765). While they were allowed to obtain a naeringsbreve, a lower type of trade licence, in order to set up their own shops, they were prohibited from obtaining a full trade licence, namely the burgherbreve, and were therefore blocked from sitting on the local advisory council of the governor.87 The slave population had no rights and was, in the beginning, not even under the protection of the Swedish Crown. It could even be argued that the early references to ‘the inhabitants’ of the islands excluded the slaves as they were their owners’ property and not legal subjects. Similar to the condition of contract   Wedberg, ‘Lag och rätt’, p. 64.   Euphrasén, Beskrifning, p. 23. 86   Hannes Hyrenius, Royal Swedish Slaves, Demographic Research Institute, 84 85

University of Göteborg, Sweden, Reports 15, Göteborg 1977, p. 13 (Table 1). 87   Rezende, ‘In their own voices’, pp. 222–224.

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labourers in Sweden, the slave owner had full rights in punishing slaves. The difference, however, was the brutality and regularity of corporal punishment. Everywhere in the Caribbean one could see owners whipping and lashing their slaves, and Euphrasén was shocked to witness similar procedures on the Swedish island. ‘Minor’ punishments were handled by the owners themselves, ‘major’ ones usually by the authorities.88 Whipping, lashing and flogging were public events to serve as warning examples for other slaves. A public pillory existed in Gustavia but it was reserved for the punishment of slaves.89 The main thrust of the Swedish governors was directed towards controlling and demarcating the social and racial space of the Swedish colonial project, and the Swedish ordinances were similar to those of the Danish governors. While the Danish regulations prescribed that no urban slave was allowed to be on the streets after 9 p.m. unless on a properly authenticated errand, and regulated their movement in the wharves,90 the Swedish Governor declared that Negroes and slaves were prohibited to dance and gamble, or to visit the harbour after ten o’clock at night,91 and small-scale trading was forbidden for them unless they had the special permission of their owners.92 The ordinance was renewed and clarified in 1790: if a slave was caught carrying dry goods for sale without the permission of the government, he was to be arrested and punished with 29 lashes in front of the Guard Corps.93 The effects of the Governor’s regulations were commented on by both Carlander and Euphrasén. Smoking on the streets was forbidden, but whereas a White was fined for such an infringement, a Black was punished with 50 lashes of the whip. A Black person who walked the streets after nine o’clock without a light and permission of his owner was thrown in jail and received 15 lashes the next morning. If a Black was found riding a horse he was flogged – 20 lashes.94 The death sentence pertained automatically if a slave carried a gun or if he had beaten his master.95 The ultimate step in controlling the slave population was the introduction of a slave law. Such a legal document did not exist until Deputy Governor von Rosenstein’s regulations of 1787. The document was never explicitly codified as the Swedish Slave Law, or even published in Sweden. Nonetheless, the ‘Ordinance of Police relative to the Treatment of Black and Coloured Persons, free or slaves,     90   91   92  

Euphrasén, Beskrifning, pp. 52–53. Euphrasén, Beskrifning, p. 53; Carlander, Resan, p. 82. Hall, Slave Society, p. 63. ‘Proklamation […] rörande musik och dans på allmän plats’, 24.8.1785, SNA SBS 1. ‘Proklamation […] innefattande förbud mot försäljning av lös egendom genom slavar utan tillstånd’, 29.10.1785, SNA SBS 1. 93   Extract from the Minutes of the Royal Council at its session of 19 April 1790, with an Ordinance on Marketplace, Weight, Sales etc., reprinted in RSB 51, 11.5.1805. 94   Carlander, Resan, p. 82. 95   Euphrasén, Beskrifning, p. 54. 88 89

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and other matters’ stipulated the rules, obligations and punishment of the Black and Couleur inhabitants of the island.96 Von Rosenstein underlined in his dispatch to the King that the regulations were necessary to prevent ‘tyrannical owners’ mistreating their slaves, as well as to prevent the slaves from rebelling against their masters and challenging the prevailing social order on the island. There was a general fear of a slave rebellion throughout the Caribbean, von Rosenstein declared, and its only prevention was to restrict the room for manoeuvre of the slave population to an absolute minimum.97 Slavery was never a legal dilemma in Sweden. In fact, one could even claim that the highest legal experts either deliberately chose to disregard slavery as part of the colonial project, or were ignorant about its existence. The main background for this contradiction was perhaps the unclear position of the island within the Swedish kingdom: What was a colony? Was it a foreign territory or part of the Crown but not the kingdom? In 1810, a member of the Swedish High Court declared that the island was situated outside the borders of Sweden but was a Swedish county governed by Swedish Law.98 What he did not say was that this definition made slavery an integral part of Swedish society. It took another 30 years before the Swedish Diet proclaimed the abolition of slavery on Saint Barthélemy in 1844. At that point, fewer than 500 slaves lived on the island. Their emancipation followed in 1846–47.99 Conclusion: Saint Barthélemy as Regulated and Hierarchical Space Saint Barthélemy was a cosmopolitan microcosmos. Similar to other late eighteenth-century West Indian slave societies, the Swedish island simultaneously contained a hegemonic white male space as well as a dominated and controlled Coloured and Black space. It was a multiracial and multiethnic society inhabited by white naturalised citizens, visiting white foreign merchants and émigrés, secondclass semi-citizens in Freed slaves and Couleurs, and African and Creole slaves in addition to white wives and innkeepers, coloured hawkers and mistresses, as well as Freed and slave Black females working in the households and farms. The island had been colonised twice. While the countryside had originally been transformed by French peasants from Normandy, the establishment of a port and the town of Gustavia was outlined by the representatives of the Swedish Crown. The new   ‘Ordningsstadga rörande behandlingen av svarta och färgade personer, fria och slavar m.m.’, 30.6.1787, English version published in RSB 5, 30.4.1804 and 6, 7.5.1804. The French text is also available at http://www.memoirestbarth.com/st-barts/esclavage/ archives-code-noir-suedois (18.2.2011); the English translation is at http://www.memoire stbarth.com/st-barts/esclavage/archives-legislation#33 (18.2.2011). 97   Letter of von Rosenstein, dated 6.7.1787, SNA SBS 1. 98   Wedberg, ‘Lag och rätt’, p. 91. 99   Hyrenius, Royal Swedish Slaves. 96

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urban space rather than the rural space thereafter became part and parcel of the Swedish colonial project. The countryside was unimportant from the perspective of the Swedish Crown and remained in the margins. West Indian slave colonies were both anomalies and realities. Slavery was forbidden and outlawed everywhere in Western Europe and although rural labour conditions were harsh in many countries, none of the rural or domestic servants and work force were ever regarded as the owners’ personal property and belongings. Although slavery was recognised as an anomaly, it was nevertheless a necessity and the backbone of the plantation and colonial system in the Caribbean. More than that – the colonial reality in the Caribbean and the Americas was based on racial segregation and prejudice. Slavery was never a moral challenge for the white population in the Caribbean throughout the eighteenth century – calls for abolition and emancipation had been raised by a few Christian radicals and philanthropists but never among the White planter or merchant class. Some of the ideas of the Enlightenment had been spreading in the Caribbean but had, by the end of the eighteenth century, only resulted in political changes on the French islands. All Caribbean islands were colonies and their (white and free Coloured) inhabitants therefore had no representation in the Parliaments, Diets or Courts in the metropolitan capitals (the case of the Planters and the Couleurs gaining a seat in the French Parliament after 1789 being the exception). The Swedish colonial project was also an anomaly and in line with the general conditions in the Caribbean. Slavery did not exist in Sweden but was allowed on the island. The island was claimed to be Swedish territory, the Swedish flag was raised above the Governor’s House and most, if not all, members of the government and garrison were Swedes (or Finns). Still, the island was never perceived and presented as a part of the Kingdom. Consequently, the island was at the same time an extra- and an ultramarine possession: the island existed for the benefit of certain segments of the Kingdom, the Crown and the owners of the Swedish West Indian Company. Not surprisingly, therefore, Saint Barthélemy soon turned into an anomaly for the general population in Sweden, if it was ever regarded by them as being a part of the Swedish Kingdom. Last, but not least, the divided cosmopolitan space on Saint Barthélemy was both an anomaly and a rule. None of the port towns in the Kingdom of Sweden had such a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society as Gustavia. On the other hand, all ports and towns in the late-eighteenth-century Caribbean were segregated and multi-racial cosmopolitan spaces. Little wonder, therefore, that Gustavia’s history was never integrated in the proper canon of the history of Sweden and Swedishness. The Swedish colonial project resulted in a typical Caribbean space, not a unique part of Sweden.

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COMPASSION Compassion is generally defined as the capacity to engage emotionally in the sufferings of fellow beings, often combined with a striving to alleviate the distress of the other. In several philosophical and religious traditions, compassion has been regarded as a main virtue. In the eighteenth century, it can be described as a core concept for the representatives of the Enlightenment, but also for their opponents. It is interwoven in the century’s vital debates about moral sentiment and universal human rights. The many legal reforms in eighteenth-century Europe, such as the abolition of torture that took place in several realms, were based on sympathetic principles. That several of these reforms also aimed to strengthen the power of a number of monarchs, represented as clement and enlightened rulers, is also part of the story. But the fact that compassion was turned into a successful strategy, for rulers as well as for revolutionaries, signals that universal principles and a shared humanity were crucial to the period. Fiction proved to be a favoured means not only for developing ideas of compassionate humankind, but for influencing an audience by a language of passion. The German Sturm und Drang movement, with Goethe’s sentimental novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, the allegedly ancient Songs of Ossian and the drames of the eighteenth century were all based on this sympathetic principle. Authors throughout Europe developed an intricate system of signs, describing every nuance of the hero’s or heroine’s emotions. Bodily expressions – tears, not least – were seen as far more telling than the conventional language of words. Rousseau, for example, mourned the emotional freshness of original language, forever lost in an age of dissimulation. His answer was the melodrama, combining speech, music, gesture and words for maximum emotional effect. Sentimental heroes and heroines expressed themselves by gestures, gazes, facial expressions and inarticulate sounds – or their equivalences on the handwritten or printed page, such as dots and dashes. Both fiction and other kinds of discourse relied on the possibility of transferring emotions from the author to the audience. Recently, the culture of sentimentality has been linked both to the Terror of the French Revolution and to the abolition of slavery. The purpose of the following chapter is to show how the Swedish author Bengt Lidner transformed a shared European sentimentality into a forceful poetical plea for global compassion. His work lays bare the Enlightenment ambiguity in the representation of the other.

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Chapter 13

A World of Fiction: Bengt Lidner and Global Compassion in Eighteenth-Century Sweden Anna Cullhed

Bengt Lidner, Sweden’s ‘poet of tears’, died at the age of 35 in Stockholm, on a January night in 1793. Lidner, born in 1757, was known as a sentimental poet, but also as a drunkard in constant need of money, a new patron, or – even better – a title as royal secretary. His most famous poems included the opera libretto Medea, a poem about a tender mother dying during the earthquake of Messina in 1783, and a long poem about the Last Judgment. His fellow poet Carl Michael Bellman collected money for the funeral with a song written for the occasion. Lidner’s loving wife, Eva Jaquette Hastfer, was left penniless and spent almost 30 years in penury. She was a conscientious keeper of her late husband’s reputation. The many anecdotes about Lidner’s all-embracing compassion and his thoughtless generosity were related by the widow to the literary historians of the early nineteenth century. Lidner’s fate encouraged compassion in the late eighteenth century, and it is still an engaging story in the twenty-first century. His poetry has been interpreted as the outpourings of a sensitive heart, produced as a necessity for the poet rather than conscious works of art. It would, however, be a mistake to interpret his career and his poetry as emanating solely from a sentimental character. In connection with the main theme of this volume I shall argue that Lidner’s life and letters contribute to the reassessment of the categories of humankind during the Age of Revolutions. The poet Lidner transgressed the borders of the Swedish realm – literally – and explored the entire universe – figuratively – in his poetry. In his literary endeavours Lidner incorporated the notion of improvement through the force of sensibility as a universal category. At the same time, his works display specific local appropriations of Enlightenment concerns.1 In the following, I shall give an outline of Lidner’s career chronologically and select some points connecting to the main theme of this project, Sweden as part of the global eighteenth century. This chapter is associated with the ‘spatial turn’, in spite of being structured along the time axis, and focuses on the geographies –   Cf. Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment, New Approaches to European History 7, Cambridge 1995, p. 12. For a critical discussion of recent concepts of the Enlightenment, see Knud Haakonssen, ‘The History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy: History or Philosophy?’, in Knud Haakonssen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, Vol. 1, Cambridge 2006, pp. 3–25, here pp. 3ff. 1

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Figure 13.1 Portrait of Bengt Lidner, coloured engraving by Anton Ulrik Berndes (1757–1844) Source: Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.

imaginary or not.2 Charles W.J. Withers has recently situated the Enlightenment ‘in place and over space’ as ‘a moment and a movement in space as well as time’.3 Lidner’s poetry and his biography are overtly global, but it remains to be seen how this tendency is to be interpreted. Whereas Withers concentrates on the natural sciences and not primarily on literature, his spatial concept can be helpful in two senses.4 First of all in a literal sense, in the terms of books, poets, or information travelling around the world, and secondly, as conceptions based on spatial categories, such as the exotic other. The relationship between fiction and the   B. Warf and S. Arias (eds), The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, London 2009. 3   Charles W.J. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment: Thinking Geographically about the Age of Reason, Chicago and London 2007, pp. xii, 1. 4   Withers includes an introductory chapter about ‘Book Geographies’: Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, pp. 50–57. 2

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factual world is a challenging issue for an interpretation of the revolutionary poets of the late eighteenth century. By combining these aspects, the Enlightenment is constructed as a local discursive phenomenon. To begin with, I shall discuss Lidner’s political statements in his dissertation from 1777. This section is followed by an outline of the local press in Göteborg and how news from the entire world was distributed and appropriated to Swedish readers. Secondly, I will turn to Lidner’s opéra comique Milot och Eloisa, set in Batavia (Jakarta). The opera raises the question whether an exotic setting also indicates cultural transfer. Child murder is another theme with global implications, and Lidner returned to the issue in several poems. I suggest that the representations of murderous mothers confront national legal discourses with the cosmopolitan court of fiction. In all these examples, the issue of slavery hovers in the background. The meanings of the concepts slave/tyrant are discussed in a section about abbé Raynal and his Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes from 1770. Finally, Lidner’s religious poetry is interpreted as a comment on the nature of power, not only in a global, but in a universal perspective. Lidner’s combination of secular and spiritual ideals of power aims at uniting all humankind, historically, socially and geographically. From Göteborg to America Lidner’s career as a poet began in a conventional way.5 As a school boy in Göteborg he wrote occasional poetry for the wealthy merchant families and the learned men of the city. In 1772, at the age of 15, he wrote a funeral poem in commemoration of Catharina Christina Sahlgren, born Grubb, wife of the founder of the East India Company Niclas Sahlgren. In the 1770s, Lidner was sent to the university city of Lund and became known as a talented and promising young man. However, his student years were interrupted by his family, who put him on a Swedish East India trade ship, embarking for China in January 1776. Lidner’s father, Olof Liedner, organist at the Göteborg cathedral and running a sealing wax factory, had died in 1759, and his mother Elisabet Boëthius married Samuel Aurell, a bookkeeper for the East India Company, in 1762. In 1771, Lidner’s mother died, and his stepfather engaged in a new marriage with Anna Lisa Wallerius, only five years older than her stepson. Documents from his student years reveal that the young poet was constantly plagued by money difficulties.6 That the family so promptly sent him abroad indicates that Lidner had transgressed   On Lidner’s biography, see Karl Warburg, Lidner. Ett bidrag till Sveriges litteraturhistoria, Stockholm 1889; Bengt Lidner, Samlade skrifter, I–IV; Harald Elovson, Bernt Olsson and Barbro Nilsson (eds), Svenska författare utgivna av Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet XIV, Stockholm 1930–1992, especially part IV (commentary). Lidner’s Samlade skrifter are henceforth quoted as SS, followed by part (I–IV) and page. 6   SS IV, pp. 27, 52, 56ff. 5

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some kind of limit – whether it was economic, academic or a matter of personal conduct is still unknown.7 In April 1776 it was noted in the log book that Lidner had absconded from the ship in Cape Town.8 Back in Göteborg, he approached the wealthy Patrick Alströmer, who agreed to support a stay at the Swedish university in Greifswald. Lidner’s family connections in Göteborg brought him into close contact with the Swedish East India Company. In the seventeenth century the Dutch inhabitants of Göteborg dominated the city; during the eighteenth century, trade with Great Britain was of increasing importance.9 But the growth of the city in the eighteenth century was strongly associated with the East India trade. The auctions of the goods brought back from China attracted buyers from several countries.10 As a background to a cosmopolitan authorship, Göteborg of the eighteenth century was an ideal hotbed. However, Lidner’s poems do not always satisfy a simple sociological mode of explanation. The trip to South Africa, for example, left not a single trace in Lidner’s poetry. It is ironic that he did not transform his geographical knowledge into poetry. But to expect this connection is partly ahistorical, since the conception of using personal experience as a source for poetry was not fully incorporated in the poetics of the time. While Lidner was eager to arouse sympathy in his readers, he did not share his personal everyday life with his readers. Character traits, such as sensibility and a never-ending compassion with every wretched fellow human creature, and his general fate, being ‘a plaything of destiny’, were, on the other hand, carefully represented in poems, in prefaces and in dedications. Whether these representations of subjectivity corresponded to the personal qualities of the person Bengt Lidner we will never know.11 In the Swedish university town of Greifswald, Lidner chose a challenging subject for his dissertation – the American struggle for freedom.12 The Greifswald dissertation, De Iure Revolutionis Americanorum, is a good example of Lidner’s belief in global compassion and global equality.13 In 1777, in the middle of   SS IV, p. 27.   SS IV, p. 53. 9   Cf. Magnus Nyman, Upplysningens spegel. Götheborgs Allehanda om Frankrike 7 8

och världen 1774–1789, Stockholm 1994, pp. 25ff. 10   Leos Müller, ‘Ostindiska kompaniet – ett globalt företag i 1700-talets Sverige’, in Leos Müller, Göran Rydén and Holger Weiss (eds), Global historia från periferin. Norden 1600–1850, Lund 2010, pp. 189–208, here p. 195. 11   See Anna Cullhed, Hör mänsklighetens röst. Bengt Lidner och känslans språk, Lund 2011, passim. 12   On Lidner’s dissertation, see Anna Cullhed and Krister Östlund, ‘Lidners avhandling om den amerikanska revolutionen’, in Anna Cullhed, Otto Fischer et al. (eds), Poetens monopolium. Bengt Lidner 250 år, Lund 2009, pp. 341–357, with references. 13   Latin text in SS I, pp. 69–82; Krister Östlund’s Swedish translation: ‘Om det rättfärdiga i amerikanernas revolution’, in Cullhed, Fischer et al. (eds), Poetens monopolium, pp. 359–374.

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the American War of Independence, he presented his treatise to the Professor of History, Johann Georg Möller, who completely opposed Lidner’s political standpoint. To Lidner, the struggle for independence in America was a just cause, since the British king had broken the treaty with his subjects. Lidner presented several lines of argument. First of all, the British monarch had not summoned the inhabitants in the colonies to discuss the level of taxation. This right should not be reserved to the inhabitants of the British Isles only, but to all British subjects. Since no agreement was made between king and subjects, the blockade against Boston was illegal. Further, the king had not defended the evangelical faith in Acadia, now Nova Scotia. According to the British constitution this was his obligation, but he had allowed Catholics in the area to practise their faith. Lidner did not dwell on the matter of faith or defend the evangelical faith. Instead, his line of argument was based on the conviction that king and subjects were bound by a mutual contract that could be broken by both parties. Accordingly, the British subjects in America could rightfully be released from their oath of obedience to the king, since the king had not fulfilled his part of the contract. Lidner’s main source was Briefe über die jetzige Uneinigkeit zwischen den Amerikanischen Colonien und dem Englischen Parlament from 1776, a British treatise translated into German. He also refers to other sources in English, German and French. Montesquieu’s De L’Esprit des loix from 1748 was one of the main authorities for his plea for the Americans. The professors in Greifswald finally decided not to give the dissertation the common permission of the faculty. It was printed without cum consensus Facultatis and it is unlikely that it was defended in public. Professor Möller’s political bias was supported by some of the faculty members, while others suggested that current political matters should be discussed openly at the university. The dean of the faculty finally sided with Möller, a decision displaying academic caution rather than political conviction. The dissertation was written in Latin, which still dominated academic discourse. In terms of language and genre it is reasonable to incorporate it in the shared European republic of letters, ignoring national borders. But, on the other hand, the dissertation ends with an enthusiastic defence of the Swedish king, Gustav III, and his coup d’état of 1772, followed by the hope that God may drive away slavery from earth. By this statement, Lidner situated his thesis both within a global setting and within the national context. The controversy in Greifswald concerned whether the students and professors of the university should take part in political discussions or not. Several professors regarded the university as an intellectual free zone, thus separating the local setting and national rule from the discursive community of scholars. However, not only the final section of the dissertation mentioned above but also the paratexts of Lidner’s dissertation emphasise a more specific setting. In the verse dedication to Patrick Alströmer, Lidner praised not only the American people, but his generous patron. Alströmer had connections with the East India Company, and his global

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trade interests were dependent on the war itself.14 Alströmer, Lidner claims, was born to sympathise with his fellow human beings and to ‘remember that the slave is a human being’. In the same poem, Lidner exclaims that ‘Free by God, Nature, and the law, / I have expressed the voice of humankind’.15 Lidner chose to express his own – and supposedly Alströmer’s – political views in terms of global compassion, using the contrast between slavery and freedom. His dissertation fits into the pattern of perfectibility, arguing for the continuous progress of humankind. I shall return to the issue of slavery later. So far, it can be noted that Lidner’s reference to Montesquieu indicates a connection between slavery and political despotism. Some of the professors in Greifswald saw the thesis as a commissioned piece of work, written to please the generous patron. In that respect it was a highly socially coded and localised discourse. But Lidner continued to support the Americans long after being dependent on Alströmer’s support, and after the peace treaty of Paris in 1783. In a long poem, The Year 1783, Lidner paid homage to George Washington and lauded the virtuous inhabitants of the continent. He introduced the female form ‘citizeness’ – medborgarinna – for the first time in the Swedish language. His republican ideal, inspired by the heroes of Roman history, included not only all social strata, but also women. America formed both an actual site of Enlightenment progress and a metaphorical site merging with republican Rome. Far from signalling revolutionary ideas, the republican jargon was, in fact, rather to be seen as a royal ideal in Sweden. It had been appropriated by the king, Gustav III, who was eager to describe himself as a citizen of the Swedish realm.16 On the other hand, the king soon opposed the American claim for independence, after his initial enthusiasm.17 By combining America, a remote area of the world, with an imaginary ideal, Lidner could express a universal political ideal in his Latin dissertation and in his Swedish poem describing the events of 1783. But it was a vision that achieved its ambiguous meaning within the local and national context – on the one hand Lidner signalled sensibility and human rights irrespective of geographical site, on the other hand he connected to the specific commercial ambitions of his patron Alströmer and to a royal political discourse.

  Müller 2010, pp. 196ff. Sweden’s neutrality during the American war of freedom made the tea trade extremely lucrative for the Swedish East India Company. 15   SS I, p. 66. 16   Bo Lindberg, Den antika skevheten. Politiska ord och begrepp i det tidig-moderna Sverige, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt arkiv 45, Stockholm 2006, p. 169. 17   Harald Elovson, Amerika i svensk litteratur 1750–1820. En studie i komparativ litteraturhistoria (diss.) Lund 1930, pp. 82ff. 14

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The Cosmopolitan Press Lidner’s dissertation and his poems commemorating Washington and the people of the new-born state in America are examples of the cosmopolitan trends in Swedish literary culture. Withers also comments on the cosmopolitan networks in Europe, including individuals as well as institutions.18 The aristocracy, as well as the learned elites, had for centuries led lives that were not restricted by territorial borders. Both groups had opportunities to travel and they were often multilingual. Marital bonds of the aristocracy wove the realms of Europe together and scholars paid allegiance to concepts such as the republic of letters rather than to the incidental political ruler. The expression ubi bene, ibi patria – where life is good lays my fatherland – was common among seventeenth-century scholars of the Stoic tradition. They mistrusted the emotional pleas used by representatives of political power.19 Both groups were producers or consumers of extravagant products, such as books and collections with a decidedly cosmopolitan profile. The De Geer family of Leufsta, mentioned in the introduction to this volume, constitutes an excellent example of this transgressive group. Information travelled fairly easily, but generally reached limited social layers of the populations in Europe. The press played an increasingly important role in the circulation and construction of information to widening circles, especially in the cities.20 Both newspaper editors and authors addressed an allmänhet, a general public, a concept that functioned as a construction of their implied audience.21 Göteborg was a city facing west and serves as an example of the distribution of knowledge through the press to a local setting. The newspaper Götheborgs Allehanda (The Gothenburg Miscellany) brought its readers news from all over the world and it competed with two other local periodicals. It was issued twice a week from 1774 and well into the nineteenth century.22 Each of the 1,000 copies probably reached as many as half a dozen readers in a city of about 12,000 inhabitants.23 In comparison, the Gazette de Leyde – according to Thomas Jefferson, the best periodical in Europe – was issued in 4,200 copies that spread around Europe.24 Many readers in Stockholm chose to subscribe to the Göteborg newspaper instead of the slower Stockholm papers. In his study about Götheborgs Allehanda of the 1770s and 1780s, Magnus Nyman concludes that the reports were multifaceted, extensive and decidedly   Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, pp. 45ff. Cf. Outram 1995, pp. 14–30.   Lindberg, Den antika skevheten, pp. 146f. 20   See Karl Erik Gustafsson and Per Rydén (eds), A History of the Press in Sweden, 18 19

Göteborg 2010. 21   Cf. SS III, p. 154. 22   Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, passim; pp. 15ff. 23   Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 14f. 24   Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, p. 21.

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cosmopolitan.25 To him, they offer an overview of the intellectual discussions of the eighteenth century, but selected and appropriated within the local and national context. The stories of foreign countries and natives contributed to a general discussion on the nature of humankind, and the reports from America introduced new political solutions to different national settings. Voltaire and Rousseau became familiar names in Göteborg, even though the readers were often cautioned that they should by no means be seduced by the radical ideas of the French intellectuals. The local readers could take part in the discussions about slavery in the colonies and the crisis in France during the decade before the revolution. Additionally, the Göteborg paper covered a vast range of topics, from hot air balloons to new agricultural methods, the kind of reforms discussed in Mats Morell’s contribution to this volume.26 To Nyman, Götheborgs Allehanda is a telling example of Enlightenment ideas.27 Readers were introduced to a striving for reforms in all areas of human life and to an optimistic Zeitgeist. Whatever conclusions the individual reader drew, it was evident that the global issues of the Enlightenment also had to be confronted in Göteborg. Being well informed about the ways of the world – of the entire globe – became closely connected with the concept of virtuous citizenship. Nyman’s remarks coincide with one of Withers’ main points, that of placing the Enlightenment: the concept gains meaning when it is interpreted as ‘looking at matters of practice made in place’.28 Thus, extensive geographical knowledge, mediated through the press, should guarantee the exertion of virtue in the local setting, in this case Göteborg. The cosmopolitanism displayed in the press revealed its local twist in several ways. Götheborgs Allehanda published a royal decree in 1788 forbidding attacks on the Swedish constitution. However, it was directly followed by an advertisement for a book about the Roman emperor Nero and the depravity of his court. To Nyman, this is a sign that by using a subtle collage technique a periodical could undermine the discourse of power and still get probation from the censor.29 The use of ancient Greece and Rome as a parallel to Sweden (and other realms) was well established, not least through the common European school curriculum. The mental geography throughout Europe included a vision of a Mediterranean ideal landscape as well as the deserts and gardens of the Middle East, mediated through the Bible. Political matters were reported promptly, and a tell-tale example is the news of the American Revolution. The Göteborg press printed translated extracts of the

    27   28   29   25 26

Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 244–254. See also Karin Hassan Jansson’s contribution to this volume. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 250ff. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, p. 63. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, p. 22.

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‘Declaration of Independence’ as early as in August 1776.30 At the other end of the Swedish realm, at the University in Greifswald, Lidner could follow the heated European debate, and treatises were translated into several languages. As I have pointed out, Lidner was familiar with French, British and German contributions to the discussion. The combination of an expanding media culture, such as newspapers, and patrons with global trade interests, proved to be a fertile soil for political treatises and poetry in support of the United States of America in Sweden. At the same time, the political ambiguity of the subject matter was obvious, and a matter of spatial as well as of political negotiation. From Stockholm to Batavia Lidner left Greifswald in 1777 without the desired academic title and headed for Stockholm and the court. His plan was to gain the attention of the king, Gustav III, whose ambitious cultural programme included a national opera house. It is likely that one of the pieces Lidner intended for the king’s eyes was the opéra comique with the title Milot och Eloisa. The piece remained a manuscript and was not printed until 1891. Milot och Eloisa combines speech, song and ballet; it is a love story with a happy ending. The cast includes Eloisa, the Batavian heroine, her father, the merchant Berostan, and her mother Emir. While the parents bear vaguely oriental names, the heroine is given a European Christian name. The events preceding the Batavia scenes are revealed during the course of action. Acron, a stranger, had abducted Eloisa. But after a shipwreck the two were sold as slaves in Siam. Eloisa met the slave Milot and fell in love with him. She was bought free by Phanér, a colonel in Dutch service, who wanted her to marry him out of gratitude.31 But back in Batavia, where the opera begins, Eloisa is reunited with Milot, who had become her father’s slave. Phanér turns out to be Milot’s father. At the end, the young lovers are united, general reconciliation is achieved, and as a wedding gift all slaves are freed. Christina Svensson has recently analysed the opera with a specific focus on cultural transfer in an article about the non-existent cultural encounter.32 She carefully lays bare the descriptions of the scenery and the use of metaphors. Even 30   Götheborgs Allehanda, 30 August 1776. Harald Elovson, ‘Bengt Lidners Greifswalder Dissertation “De iure revolutionis Americanorum”’, in Fritz Braun and Kurt Stegmann von Pritzwald, Dankesgabe für Albert Leitzmann, Jena 1927, pp. 67–90, here p. 79. Cf. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 187ff.; Elovson 1930, pp. 75f. 31   The name ‘Phanér’ is probably equivalent to the Dutch name ‘van Neer’. I would like to thank Professor Karel Davids for the suggestion. 32   Christina Svensson, ‘Lidner och det främmande. Det försvunna kulturmötet i Lidners opera Milot och Eloisa’, in Cullhed, Fischer et al. (eds), Poetens monopolium. Bengt Lidner 250 år, Lund 2009, pp. 261–278.

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though Lidner adds tigers and elephants, many of the conventional Western literary symbols such as the rose and the oak are retained. On the manifest level of words, Lidner adds local colour, but does not transform the scenery beyond the European conventions. Slavery, one of the main themes of the opera, is treated in a similar way. The lovers refer to the bonds of love as similar to the chains of the slave, and these two levels are intertwined. Milot and Eloisa have both been slaves, literally, and are also slaves to each other, metaphorically, as true lovers. Additions of exotic elements, not least from America, were common in French eighteenth-century opera, as Marie-Christine Skuncke and Anna Ivarsdotter point out in their work on the birth of Swedish opera.33 Cora och Alonzo (Cora and Alonzo) (1782) was written for the Royal Opera in Stockholm. The libretto was based on the French author Jean-François Marmontel’s novel about the destruction of the Inca realm by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. But it is important to point out that the libretto represents Peru as it appears through ‘Swedish-French Enlightenment glasses’.34 The plea for tolerance and modernised legislation expressed in the opera had an appeal to Gustav III, who a few years earlier had initiated similar reforms in Sweden.35 Lidner’s libretto Milot och Eloisa, was not only an enlightened piece, set in an ideal landscape with exotic references. Christina Svensson traces the story back to Jean Mocquet’s Voyages en Afrique, Indes orientales et occidentales from 1617.36 It became known throughout Europe through Richard Steele’s Inkle and Yarico, printed in The Spectator in 1711. The Englishman Thomas Inkle is shipwrecked on Barbados, a British colony, and is saved by the native Indian Yarico. They fall in love, but Inkle sells his then pregnant mistress as a slave – her condition makes her even more valuable on the market.37 The story, presented as a true story, was designed to stir indignation against greed, but also against slavery for moral reasons. Several British women writers appropriated the theme.38 In the Germanspeaking areas of Europe, authors such as Salomon Gessner, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert and Johann Jakob Bodmer based poems on the storyline in the 1740s and 1750s. Gellert’s poem ‘Inkle und Yariko’ was translated into Swedish in 1767. Lidner’s opera differs from the Inkle and Yarico story in many respects. The heroine Eloisa ‘acts and expresses herself as if she had taken lessons from 33   Marie-Christine Skuncke and Anna Ivarsdotter, Svenska operans födelse. Studier i gustaviansk musikdramatik, Stockholm 1998, p. 91; Svensson 2009, p. 274. 34   Skuncke and Ivarsdotter, Svenska operans födelse, p. 90. 35   Skuncke and Ivarsdotter, Svenska operans födelse, p. 95. 36   The following is based on Svensson, ‘Bengt Lidner och det främmande’, pp. 267– 272. 37   In Moquet’s version, Yarico has borne Inkle a child, and when Inkle denounces Yarico on the ship, the desperate mother ‘rips the baby in half’. Moira Ferguson, Subject to Others. British Women Writers and Colonial Slavery, 1670–1834, New York and London 1992, p. 77. Yarico thus turns into a Medea. 38   Ferguson, Subject to Others, pp. 69–90.

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a common sense philosopher’, as Svensson pertinently puts it.39 Eloisa is not identified as Dutch, but her father’s hall is decorated in ‘the Dutch style’, according to the stage directions.40 Whereas the colonel is ‘in Dutch service’, Lidner offers no information about the character’s background. Issues of race and nationality remain vague or out of focus in the opera. In eighteenth-century Batavia, on the other hand, intermarriage between Batavian women and Dutch officials was common.41 Eloisa is far from an exotic character, and the virtue she represents is defined as a universal quality. While the Inkle and Yarico theme had enabled authors to criticise the transatlantic slave trade and European greed in different ways, Lidner chose to combine his argument with a clearly European utopia based on Enlightenment ideas of universal equality, according to Svensson. In the play, slavery is rejected with reference to ‘the law of nature’, echoing Montesquieu’s De L’Esprit des loix, the source that supported Lidner’s claim for American freedom.42 From an intertextual perspective, there are other possible connections apart from the theme emphasised by Svensson. Motifs such as slavery, recognitions and unexpected reunions have a long history in Western literature. The early Greek novels in Antiquity, for example, were full of stories of lovers being captured, separated, enslaved, set free, subjected to mock executions and finally happily reunited.43 Similar traits became elements of the eighteenth-century drame.44 The Mediterranean world was known to a Swedish audience through its literary legacy as well as through trade and warfare with the Ottoman Empire and other realms. In the eighteenth century, the possible settings for an adventurous story were expanded by the increasing exchange with the Far East and the New World, thus changing one remote scene for another. As Christopher L. Miller remarks, ‘displacement’ was a characteristic of eighteenth-century French literature. The triangular slave trade and the plantations in the West Indies were, in fiction, exchanged for exotic realms, often in the Orient.45

  Svensson, ‘Bengt Lidner och det främmande’, p. 272.   SS I, p. 125. 41   Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia. Europeans and Eurasians in 39 40

Colonial Indonesia, 2nd edition, Madison 2009. 42   Svensson, ‘Bengt Lidner och det främmande’, p. 266. On Montesqiueu and slavery, see Sue Peabody, ‘There Are no Slaves in France’: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime, New York and Oxford 1996, pp. 66f., 101ff.; Christopher L. Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle. Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade, Durham NC and London 2008, pp. x, 64ff., 81. 43   Cf. Tim Whitmarsh (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, Cambridge 2008. 44   Marie-Christine Skuncke, Sweden and European Drama 1772–1796: A Study of Translations and Adaptations, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Historia Litterarum 10 (diss. Cambridge 1980), Uppsala 1981, p. 157. 45   Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle, p. 74.

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Lidner’s opéra comique forms an intriguing example of the metaphorical use of remote geographies. Apart from the strangely mixed trees and plants from varying climate zones mentioned by Svensson, Lidner places the deities of Greek and Roman mythology in the Batavian context. Irrespective of their supposed nationality, the characters invoke Echo, Venus, Pan or Zephyr. Even the slaves include Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, in their final chorus.46 Svensson does not dwell on the part played by the slaves. In the seventh scene, the stage directions describe a woodland park, ‘where a multitude of male and female slaves are working’.47 How the scene would have been represented in an eighteenth-century theatre we do not know. What is evident is that Lidner chooses to let anonymous representatives of the group of slaves make their voices heard. ‘A small female slave’ compares herself to a rose that will wither as soon as the sun rises. Her plea is that God should be moved by her innocence.48 In the final scene, the slaves sing in praise of their newly acquired freedom. The main theme of their final chorus is the reunion of families.49 Mothers are reunited with their children, fathers return to their spouses, and the old man can meet death as a free man. But the old male slave also instructs a young boy and reminds him to share his bread with his neighbour. Later on, he concludes that grandeur and felicity depends on being contented with your lot. All these standard words of wisdom became part of Lidner’s poetical repertoire. In this case, they were uttered by slaves in Batavia, in later works they were exclaimed by Israelites in the oratorio Gethsemane (1791) and by the narrator of the poem about the insane at Danviken hospital in Stockholm (1792). Family bonds were crucial to Lidner’s world view, and manifested in different genres, such as the opera libretto Medea or the long poem about the year 1783. The compassionate moral code and the emphasis of the tender family were ascribed to various nationalities and incorporated in different historical and geographical settings. Svensson’s main argument is that the cultural encounter does not take place and that the other stays muted in Lidner’s opéra comique. The play, Svensson claims, hovers between ‘charming escapism and repressed knowledge’.50 A postcolonial reading certainly makes sense, but it may disarm the complexity of the individual poetical work. The fact that a slave girl is represented as an innocent rose, that she shares the characteristics not only of the Batavian heroine but of any standard Western heroine, could be interpreted as an elevation of the character. The encounter between the category slave and the literary conventions connected with a highly esteemed poetical role cannot be disregarded. On the other hand, Lidner is careful to disarm his own play with the old slave’s assertion that true virtue consists in accepting your lot. To be sure, the staging of Lidner’s opera     48   49   50   46 47

SS I, pp. 113, 118, 128, 134. SS I, p. 116. SS I, pp. 117f. SS I, pp. 130–135. Svensson, ‘Bengt Lidner och det främmande’, p. 275.

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would have turned into a test of its implications. But since the manuscript was neither printed, nor staged, it lacks the place, the moment, and the audience that would have contributed to an interpretation fixed in the contemporary context. As a text, it emphasises the challenge of interpretation posed by eighteenth-century fiction. It has been suggested that representations of historically, socially or geographically remote parts of the world functioned primarily as comments on Western society. The authors of the eighteenth century used exotic settings in order to criticise their domestic regimes or in order to depict a utopia serving their own national concerns.51 At times, this guise was a means to avoid political or religious censorship. But the pedagogical pattern of the contrast, inviting the reader to fill in the comparison of his or her own political milieu, was an established discursive technique. It led to an emphasis on very specific traits of the ideal societies of ancient times, of foreign and exotic parts of the globe, and erased other important traits. For example, as Peter Gay has pointed out, Tahiti was used ‘not to destroy but to purify and perfect Western civilization’.52 In this sense, otherness remained a means to make the well-known visible, and was interpreted according to the logic of opposition and contrast, introducing space as a metaphorical concept.53 At the same time, the Enlightenment encounter with the exotic, Dorinda Outram claims, can be interpreted as a failure, because the concept of difference was never dealt with.54 In Lidner’s case, the combination of identical moral standpoints uttered by fictional characters from all parts of the world and from all periods in history underlines the ambiguity of the issue. Difference is in one sense deleted, but on the other hand new kinds of fictitious characters are endowed with new traits. And it is, perhaps, this combination that contributes to the tension inherent in a Swedish manuscript about characters vaguely connected with the words ‘Batavian’ or ‘Dutch’, interchangeably slaves and free, and emphasising the allegedly universal bonds of the sentimental family. Sweden, Slavery and Abbé Raynal Lidner was a contributor to the periodical Dagbladet Wälsignade Tryck-Friheten in Stockholm in the 1780s. The paper was part of the political opposition against 51   Cf. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment, p. 40; Skuncke, Sweden and European Drama, pp. 161f. See also Anne Fastrup and Knut Ove Eliassen, ‘Drømmen om Sydhavet. Biopolitik og seksualitet i Denis Diderots Supplément au voyage de Bougainville’, Sjuttonhundratal. Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies 2010, pp. 123–145. 52   Cf. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, p. 195, quoting Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Science of Freedom, New York 1996, p. 96. 53   Cf. Ann Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer. Författarroll och retorik hos frihetstidens kvinnliga författare (diss. Uppsala) Hedemora 2001, pp. 179ff. 54   Outram, The Enlightenment, p. 79.

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the king, Gustav III. It was confiscated by the authorities several times but was reissued under a new name, just changing the order of the words in the title – ‘the Blessed Freedom of the Press’. The paper is one of the points where Lidner’s and abbé Raynal’s roads cross.55 Lidner and Raynal shared an admiration for the North American colonies and their struggle for freedom. Abbé Raynal, in turn, described the Swedish constitution preceding the coup d’état of Gustav III in 1772 as an enlightened ideal. Sweden of the so-called Age of Liberty, stretching from 1719–1772, was admired by the philosophes, including Voltaire.56 Raynal’s major work, his sixvolume Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes from 1770, contains a section about Sweden and the Swedish East India Company. He also commented on the cities where import and export was allowed, and admired the Swedish military system.57 In the 1760s, Raynal was informed about the political system of Sweden by the ambassador in Paris, Count Gustaf Philip Creutz.58 Creutz, a renowned poet, was Lidner’s host during his stay in Paris in 1781–1782. In 1780, Creutz corresponded with Gustav III about Raynal’s new edition of the history of the two Indies, and informed the king that the book was banned in France; Sweden soon followed suit. Raynal’s enthusiastic exclamations in favour of the American Revolution did not please the sovereigns of Europe.59 Both the Swedish poet and the French philosopher admired the emperor Joseph II; they were engaged in a general enlightened struggle against tyranny in all senses of the word.60 Joseph II was turned into a major hero in Lidner’s poem The Year 1783 for his reforms aimed at religious tolerance – in Lidner’s view the emperor’s shutting down monasteries was a successful struggle against fanaticism. Raynal’s presence in the Swedish press forms a telling illustration of the localised enlightened discourse of the eighteenth century. The periodical Wälsignade TryckFriheten published extracts from Raynal’s Revolution de l’Amerique in 1782 as an attack against the Swedish king. The readers were duly informed that the criticism was directed exclusively against ‘the despots of Africa and Asia’. The oppositional press in Sweden thus used a French author and his critique of Britain’s rule of the North American colonies as a means to comment on the political situation in 55   Harald Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, Samlaren 1928, pp. 18–84. The following is based on pp. 57–62. On Raynal and Götheborgs Allehanda, see Nyman 1994, pp. 126f. 56   Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, p. 24. 57   Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 23f., 50. See also Chapter 6 in this volume. 58   Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 28f. 59   Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and Manfred Tietz (eds), Lectures de Raynal. L’Histoire des deux Indes en Europe et en Amérique au XVIIIe siècle, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 286, Oxford 1991. 60   Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, p. 31f., Raynal’s eloquent praise for the American Revolution in the third edition (1780) of his history of the two Indies shows similarities to Lidner’s 1777 thesis.

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Sweden, but allegedly criticising the exotic realms of the Far East and of Africa. Space is used as a means to draw attention to the reader’s experience of his or her local or national setting, but with the help of the mirror image that depends on an awareness of a global space and global distance.61 Raynal’s Histoire was a varied and extensive work that included an emphatic protest against slavery. However, Raynal connected all kinds of subordination with slavery. No human being, Raynal exclaimed, whether man, son, woman, servant or ‘negro’, should be the property of a sovereign, father, husband, master or ‘colonist’.62 The book’s presence in the Swedish intellectual landscape is an indication that the issue of slavery was indeed discussed, and it can partly explain the ambiguity of the words slav (slave) in Swedish, ranging from a political subject oppressed by a tyrant to an African slave in the Americas. In fact, Raynal’s cowriter Denis Diderot pointed out that the common use of slavery as a metaphorical concept lead to a disregard for the sufferings of the slaves in the colonies.63 The press reports made the readers in Sweden familiar with the colonial slave system and the literal use of the word slave. For example, Götheborgs Allehanda published an article in 1783 commenting on the rising resistance in Europe against ‘negro slavery’, Neger Slaveriet, as a disgrace to humanity.64 Detailed accounts of cruel punishments inflicted by the slave owners were reported in Swedish periodicals. However, Sweden had been confronted with slavery not only as part of transatlantic trade and colonial endeavours but foremost as a threat to Swedish seamen buying salt in Mediterranean ports.65 Both in the press and in the discourse about the Swedish slaves of North Africa, two connected arguments against slavery were activated. Slavery was regarded as a violation of natural law and a violation of the law of God.66 Earlier in the eighteenth century, nationwide collections of alms were at certain times specifically intended for paying the ransoms of Swedes enslaved in the Barbary states.67 Lidner’s imaginary use of slavery in his opéra comique was void of a discussion about race. While gender played an important role – the heroine Eloisa is a philosophically sophisticated woman who uses the sentimental power of her sex to free the slaves of Batavia – the issue of racial difference was suppressed in     63   64   65  

Cf. Withers, Placing the Enlightenment. Peabody, ‘There Are no Slaves in France’, p. 97. Miller, The French Atlantic Triangle, pp. 79, 84. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, p. 165. Joachim Östlund, ‘Swedes in Barbary Captivity: The Political Culture of Human Security, Circa 1660–1760’, in Historical Social Research, Vol. 35, 2010, No. 4, pp. 148– 163. Cf. Outram, The Enlightenment, p. 72f. 66   Öhrberg, Vittra fruntimmer, pp. 178f. Cf. Robert M. Spector, ‘The Quock Walker Cases (1781–83). Slavery, its Abolition, and Negro Citizenship in Early Massachusetts’, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 53, No. 1 (January 1968), pp. 12–32, here p. 14; Miller 2008, pp. 84f. 67   Östlund, ‘Swedes in Barbary Captivity’, p. 155. 61

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the play.68 Lidner activated both natural law and Christian principles in a poetic and sentimental argument against slavery.69 One of the strongest anti-slavery arguments in Raynal’s writings turns out to be a slave woman killing her new-born child ‘with a fury mingled with a spirit of revenge and compassion, that they may not become the property of their cruel masters’.70 Extreme violence caused by motherly tenderness, the female quality that the eighteenth century saw as universal, was presented to the readers as the ultimate consequence of slavery, according to Raynal. The slave woman, desperately murdering her baby, functioned ‘like a mirror, reflecting back to the European the true horror he inflicts’, according to Josephine McDonagh in her book on child murder.71 In Lidner’s poetry, slavery was depicted in a similar way, as a threat to the ‘universal’ bonds between mothers and children, between spouses and between generations. His opéra comique featured exactly this set of arguments, and they were, in fact, uttered by the slaves. From Paris to Colchis The connection between the debate about slavery and child murder is established in several texts from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Lidner saw the murdering mother as a victim and turned her into a pitiable character, like Raynal and Moquet in the seventeenth-century version of Inkle and Yarico.72 Lidner did not refer to slaves, but to the unmarried mothers of eighteenth-century Sweden, in an ode with the title ‘The Tenderness’ (1781). The issue of child murder had been raised by the king in 1778 and he rejected capital punishment for this particular crime. During the Diets of 1778–1779 and 1786, child murder and the status of unmarried mothers were discussed at length. The reports from the estates bear witness to the views of a number of representatives taking part in the discussions.73

  Svensson, ‘Bengt Lidner och det främmande’, p. 271. Cf. Outram, The Enlightenment, pp. 74ff. Ferguson (Subject to Others) argues that women writers used slavery as a means to represent their own powerlessness. 69   Brycchan Carey, British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility. Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760–1807, Basingstoke and New York 2005. 70   The 1776 English translation of Raynal is quoted from Josephine McDonagh, Child Murder and British Culture 1720–1900, Cambridge 2003, p. 54. 71   McDonagh, Child Murder and British Culture, p. 55. 72   Cullhed, Hör mänsklighetens röst, pp. 121–164; Ferguson, Subject to Others, p. 77. 73   See Sveriges ridderskaps och adels riksdagsprotokoll, Sten Landahl (ed.), 32, Stockholm 1982; Prästeståndets riksdagsprotokoll, Stefan Lundhem (ed.), 24–25, Stockholm 1987, 1990. On child murder and Sweden, see Eva Bergenlöv, Skuld och oskuld. Barnamord och barnkvävning i rättslig diskurs och praxis omkring 1680–1800, Studia Historica Lundensia 13 (diss.), Lund 2004, with references. 68

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Lidner’s literary efforts had been successful and Gustav III was in need of court poets in his strivings to create a national opera scene in Stockholm. As we have seen, the king’s reformation of criminal law, combined with an enlightened exoticism, could be a suitable theme for an opera serving political ends. The king sent Lidner abroad, to Göttingen and to Paris. His support for Lidner’s education was exceptional, but his investment proved to be a failure. Lidner became entangled in a feud about literary property with his host, the Swedish ambassador in Paris, the poet Count Gustav Philip Creutz. The two poets had worked together on an opera libretto with the exotic title Rustan and Mirza (Rustan och Mirza), and both claimed literary ownership to the resulting verses. Not surprisingly, the king took Creutz’s side and Lidner experienced a fall from grace. It meant that the door closed on his possibilities as a librettist – he would never be able to find a composer and his work would never be staged at the opera house in Stockholm. Back in Stockholm, Lidner published the opera libretto Medea in 1784 – it was never set to music, it was never performed, but Lidner decided to market it as a text and to hope for its appeal to an anonymous audience. Whereas Medea is not the typical child murderess, since she is married to a Greek prince, and her two sons are several years old, she is embraced by the same kind of sentimental tenderness as the anonymous girl in the ode just mentioned. Lidner explains her deeds – she stabs her two boys to death – as the result of motherly love. She takes revenge on her unfaithful husband by killing the beloved boys and, paradoxically, the murderous mother is at the same time the ideal mother in this late eighteenthcentury version of the Medea myth. She is supposed to arouse sympathy, much in the same sense as Raynal’s depiction of the desperate slave mother. The cultural legacy of Greece and Rome was seen as an integral part of Swedish poetry in the eighteenth century. Lidner, who had studied Greek in Göttingen, was familiar with Euripides’ tragedy Medea and the many Roman, and later French and German, versions of the story. The authors in Europe shared a common canon, based on the classical sources and complemented with works in different national languages. In the ancient sources, Medea is seen as a stranger, since she originates from Colchis on the Black Sea coast – today’s Georgia. In Euripides’ tragedy, Jason is the representative of Greek reason, while Medea is the foreign sorceress from the uncivilised east. Lidner transforms the opposition completely. Because of his lack of compassion, Jason earns the epithet ‘barbarian’, the designation that is normally attached to the non-Greek Medea. In Lidner’s version, inner qualities – vice and virtue – are more important than ethnic categorisations. The universalism that was expressed in Milot och Eloisa returns in the opera libretto Medea. Whereas the earlier opera concealed the cultural differences between Batavia and the Western world, the rejection of the ‘civilised’ Jason and his Greek ideals brings the conflict to the surface. The audience sides with the other, Medea, and is encouraged to condemn Jason. But Lidner not only embraces the stranger Medea, at the same time he disregards Medea’s foreignness, a factor that played an important part in the ancient tragedy.

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Figure 13.2 Medea

Source: Bengt Lidner, Samlade arbeten, 1796.

Lidner’s poems on child murder and of criminal mothers are striking examples of the difference between fictional representations of the theme and the outcome of court cases in Europe. The German Sturm und Drang generation was known for its adaptations of the theme.74 The murderous mothers of the court cases were met with an increasing degree of sympathy in the late eighteenth century, just like the 74   Jan Matthias Rameckers, Der Kindesmord in der Literatur der Sturm-und-DrangPeriode. Ein Beitrag zur Kultur- und Literatur-Geschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts (diss.)

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fictitious mothers. In contrast, fictional fathers were condemned to a greater extent, while real fathers of illegitimate children were generally freed by the courts in Europe.75 The aristocratic libertine, the ruin of young women of the lower classes, was a favourite fictitious villain. In fact, the fathers and mothers of the illegitimate children were commonly of the same social standing. In the 1790s, the press continued to quote from Raynal in discussions about unwed mothers. Raynal’s relation of a court case in Massachusetts includes a speech by a woman named Polly Baker who defended the natural bonds between herself and her lover and their five children, in spite of the fact that their relation was not recognised by the Church or the Court.76 The opera libretto by Lidner envisaged an ideal union of the sentimental nucleus family. The tender and virtuous father was the necessary counterpart to the equally tender and virtuous mother, parents blessed with innocent children. While the maternal qualities Lidner and his contemporaries argued for were perceived as universal, the developing public sphere of the closing eighteenth century soon led to an increasing separation of men and women.77 From Finland to Heaven and Hell After a few meagre years in Stockholm, Lidner left for the eastern part of the Swedish realm in 1787. He was in need of new opportunities, new patrons and new means to conciliate Gustav III. During his stay in Finland, his Stockholm publisher prepared the Collected Works for printing. Lidner was also a pioneer in his publication strategies, and the marketing of a collection was a novelty in the Swedish book trade. For a poet at the age of 31 it might seem hasty, but an agreement with the publisher Johan Christopher Holmberg solved a towering debt to his subscribers. In Åbo, Lidner also concluded his great poem about the Day of Judgement, Yttersta Domen, in 1788. This theme enabled Lidner to develop not only a global, but a cosmic perspective. In the poem, more than 1,000 lines long, the narrator takes part in the judgement of tyrants and criminals, but he also distributes compassion and salvation to heathens, to the insane and to virtuous kings. The connection between slavery and the tyrant is, as I have suggested earlier, common in eighteenth-century sources, in poetry as well as in prose treatises. As Sue Peabody has noted, it is expressed in the famous beginning of Rousseau’s Amsterdam 1927; Matthias Luserke-Jaqui, Medea. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte der Literatur, Tübingen, Basel 2002. 75   Bergenlöv, Skuld och oskuld, p. 263; Isabel V. Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815, Ithaca NY and London 1996, pp. 111–116, 280–285. 76   Elovson, ‘Raynal och Sverige’, pp. 70ff. 77   Cf. Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution, Ithaca NY and London 1988.

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On the Social Contract: ‘Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.’78 At that time, Peabody suggests, it became common to ‘invoke slavery as a metaphor for political domination’.79 The meaning of the word thus hovered between the actual slavery practised by European colonial realms and the metaphorical, which criticised oppression of subjects in a more general sense. Not surprisingly, Peabody includes Raynal in her discussion, since he was one of the most emphatic opponents of slavery at the time.80 Incidentally, the French abbé uses the word ‘barbarian’ to describe slave owners and oppressors, a word that Lidner used to designate Jason, the allegedly civilised Greek prince. In the eighteenth century, poems still functioned as monuments in words, a kind of metaphorical statues. The holders of political power, together with new groups gaining influence, were eager to form their own repute with the help of poetry. But the poets of eighteenth-century Europe became increasingly independent, and decided to introduce new standards of conduct that excluded some of the rulers from eternal fame. Several poets not only modified their depiction of kings, but decided to elevate individuals displaying sentimental virtues, irrespective of their position in society.81 The narrator of the poem Yttersta Domen, who is raised to the status of immortality at the beginning of the poem, relates the events during the Judgement. In one section, Lidner lists the condemned, and includes tyrants, murderers, seducers, usurers and atheists (ll. 369–90). Later in the poem, one of the most despicable tyrants is described as a ‘Tigress’ (ll. 952–9). According to the commentary, Lidner explicitly refers to Catherine II of Russia.82 She is accused of gaining her throne by murdering her own husband, Tsar Peter III. Lidner’s specific criticism of the Russian empress, the enemy of the Swedish realm and of Gustav III, is combined with general characteristics of the tyrants of the whole world. The tyrant prides himself (or herself) on realms, slaves and great honour won through bloodshed. As a contrast, Lidner displays the orphaned children, the widows and ‘the people’ labouring to fulfil the changing whims of the tyrant. The mentioned slave can either refer to actual slavery or to the subordination of the subjects to the tyrant. To Lidner, martial honour is one of the main causes for the sufferings of ordinary men and women. Lidner’s attitude to war and to political power hovers between attraction and abhorrence. Both the war of freedom, such as the American war, and the Swedish war against Russia in 1788–1790, were glorified. But interpreted as local utterances, depending on the specific political and cultural context, Lidner’s standpoints are not particularly surprising. His choice of audience – a ‘general’ public or the     80   81  

Rousseau is quoted from Peabody, ‘There Are no Slaves in France’, p. 96. Peabody, ‘There Are no Slaves in France’, p. 96. Peabody, ‘There Are no Slaves in France’, p. 97. Sven Delblanc, Ära och minne. Studier kring ett motivkomplex i 1700-talets litteratur (diss. Uppsala), Stockholm 1965. 82   SS IV, p. 399. 78 79

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Figure 13.3 Yttersta Domen, by Johan Fredrik Martin (1755–1816) Source: Bengt Lidner, Samlade arbeten, 1796.

king – can explain why he adapts to opposing views. For example, in an Ode to the Finnish Soldier (Ode til Finska Soldaten) during the Russian war in 1788, Lidner encouraged his countrymen to fight with the king. On the other hand, in a global and Christian perspective, supposedly shared by the public of Stockholm, and indeed by the king, worldly honour was disclaimed. The ideal ruler visits the poor, he struggles to increase the happiness and the wealth of his people, but he does not display his deeds openly. In this sense, the true king transforms into Christ. Stories of incognito kings caring for the welfare of their people were stock features of sentimental rhetoric in the eighteenth-century press.83 But Lidner’s   Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 44f.

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poetry also shows signs of the increasing difficulty of relating to an audience that was unknown to the author. This new market situation can account for some of the contradictory and ambiguous positions expressed in Lidner’s poetry. Lidner’s poem about the Last Judgement is, of course, a global matter, and Lidner’s gaze stretches from Asia to Peru, from the Caucasus to Ceylon. The whole earth is destroyed and humankind is divided into the saved and the condemned. Not even Lidner is able to extend his compassion to everyone. The tyrants and the seducers – indirectly responsible for child murder – are beyond salvation. On the other hand, he turns Eve into the tenderest of mothers, and it is thanks to her plea that the heathens are saved. Eve becomes another Medea, a guilty but sensitive mother figure, finally positioned as a parallel to Christ in her plea for humankind. In Finland, Lidner married Eva Jaquette Hastfer, a poor woman of noble descent. She was an admirer of his poetry, and transported her affection from the text to the person. Lidner spent his last years in Stockholm with his wife and their daughter Adelaide, born in 1790. One of his last great poems is De Galne (The Insane) from 1792. The preface explains that it was written exclusively to encourage compassion and support for the inmates of the mental hospital Danviken in Stockholm. The poem is explicitly tied to a specific place at a specific moment, but it refers to a compassionate ideal claimed to be universal. One of the inmates described in the poem is a young child murderess, who drowns herself. It is evident that Lidner returns to certain motifs of strong emotional appeal. The care for the insane, who had been pardoned in Lidner’s poem about the Last Judgement, was yet another Enlightenment issue that engaged the eighteenth century. Lidner’s career ended as it started, in a strong sentimental commitment for the oppressed, be they subjects to the British kings, slaves in Batavia, seduced women, or individuals struck by insanity. Enlightenment Ideals and Global Compassion To Lidner, every man and woman was his equal, and from this global – or even cosmic – point of departure he created an alternative hall of fame. Lidner introduced a sentimental code of conduct in his poems. George Washington was one of Lidner’s selected heroes, but he also paid homage to a variety of contemporary historical individuals, such as the Danish queen Caroline Mathilde, the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, and the Montgolfier brothers, famous inventors of the hot air balloon that was publicly demonstrated in 1783.84 Among his favourite historical, and fictitious, characters were Lucius Iunius Brutus, one of the founders of the Roman Republic, Cato the Elder, an example of republican virtue, the Jews of the siege of Jerusalem in 70 ad and the clement Roman Emperor Titus, the suffering Werther of Goethe’s scandalous 1774 novel, Daura from the immensely   Cf. Nyman, Upplysningens spegel, pp. 153ff.

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popular Songs of Ossian, and Julie from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s equally popular novel Julie, ou La nouvelle Héloïse (1761). Lidner covered several of the contested issues discussed during the eighteenth century, such as slavery, child murder, motherhood, political power and natural law. He was taking part in the ongoing redefinition of human categories in terms of gender and power. In many respects, he is a good example of the tensions of the eighteenth-century world, and his poetry displays certain ambiguities that are of specific interest. Lidner’s representations of motherhood, for example, are all defined in terms of innocence. But in this group Lidner included Medea, who stabs her two sons to death, Caroline Mathilde, who was the mistress of Struensee and bore his child, and several anonymous child murderers. In the case of Medea, he transported guilt to Jason, who had wilfully abandoned his loving wife. In Lidner’s poetry, the mother figure is both loving and caring, she is chastity personified, but she can also be transformed into a murdering monster if she is cast off. The slave mother, as a combination of the tender and the murderous mother, became a focal point for the enlightened discussion about gender. Lidner articulates these eighteenth-century anxieties raised by the discussions of humankind within a Swedish context. Compassion, the maternal quality, was also regarded as the cardinal virtue of the ideal ruler. Lidner’s attitude towards Gustav III swayed, but there are several examples where the Swedish king was cast in the role of the enlightened monarch. At the same time, Lidner sided with the rebellious Americans, contrary to the king. Lidner’s discussion about political power is intertwined with his representations of Christ, who combines majesty with compassion. By blurring the lines between religious and political poetry, Lidner not only suggested a new balance of desirable virtues, but adapted sentimental rhetoric for all kinds of issues. The ambiguity that Lidner explored in his poetry, in his transformations of lovers to slaves, of Medea into Christ, shows that the order of the world was at stake. He transgressed the common categories of man and woman, human and god, sane and insane, slave and free, in his plea for global compassion. That late-eighteenth-century poetry was experimental is obvious, but it is also obvious that it contributed to the revolutionary discussions on the nature of humankind, of the world and of religion. In this respect, Sweden was not peripheral, and Lidner’s poetical gaze encompasses the entire universe. That the poems confront Enlightenment issues is evident, but it is just as obvious that the solutions are provisional as well as localised. In the literary history of Sweden, the world outside the Swedish realm has traditionally been given the function of a source of influence. Swedish poets read Greek and Latin poets, they were inspired by individual authors such as Goethe, Rousseau or Thomas Gray, according to the standard outlines. This conventional tale gives the impression that the great cultural turns of Europe slowly trickled their way into the far north and eventually moulded Swedish poetry into a provincial and belated echo of the great European canon. It has been my aim to show that a Swedish poet did not necessarily lag behind his European colleagues.

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The case of Lidner shows that a Scandinavian poet was indeed up to date. The circulation of knowledge through different kinds of media expanded quickly during the century. Sweden was not only an onlooker, but contributed to the debates of the Enlightenment and global issues. Poetry written in Swedish was seldom translated into other European languages, however, and consequently had little impact outside Swedish-speaking areas. Still, the cultural, political, scientific and commercial developments in Sweden were of interest to Europe; the onetrack movement from Europe to Sweden is supplemented with a cross-current moving from Sweden. But irrespective of the direction of the currents, it is of great importance to bear in mind that the same kind of information or the same admired poet could function differently in various settings. The complexity of the global issues and their local varieties is a further challenge for a study of the Swedish eighteenth century in terms of ‘placing’ the Enlightenment. The press, as a site for constructing localised knowledge, for mirroring the globe, and for ‘doing the Enlightenment’, had an additional function. Lidner referred directly to news items as the source for several poems. His poetry shows great similarities with the many sentimental stories of incognito kings helping their subjects, as well as righteous rebellions. In fact, the structure of his long poems is also comparable to the Swedish press in a more profound sense. The combination of fact and fiction, the sentimental appeal to the reader, the intermingling of news and anecdotes, the representation of celebrities as well as of completely unknown individuals, the combination of the local and the global, are just a few shared characteristics. In fact, Lidner’s poetry displays the very tensions that mark great parts of the Enlightenment discourse. Much can be said – and has been said – about misrepresentations and the muted voices of the others, but the eighteenth century is definitely a period of globalisation.85 The overtly global poet Lidner was, in fact, a result of the local literary scenes in Göteborg, Lund, Greifswald, Åbo and Stockholm, and of the Western literary heritage he encountered in Göttingen and Paris. Lidner’s global compassion proved to be malleable to the political conjectures of Gustavian Sweden and to the frail idea of a general public. The meaning of the cosmopolitan outlook was, however, not fixed. The poet had to tread carefully in order to please his unknown audience, forming their world view through the increasing exchange of information through books, periodicals and prints. But the most evident result of this particular context was that, for whatever reason, a sentimental Swedish poet from Göteborg, who sailed to South Africa as a teenager, expressed compassion not only with the Americans and the slaves of Batavia, but with every human being – men and women – from ‘Nova Zembla’ to Ceylon.

  Cf. Outram, The Enlightenment, pp. 63–79.

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Sveaborg and the End of the Swedish Cosmopolitan Eighteenth Century: An Epilogue Göran Rydén and Holger Weiss

In summer 1747, three young Swedish officers, Augustin Ehrensvärd, Hans Henrik von Liewen and Alexander von Strussenfelt, sailed in the Gulf of Finland and through the Finnish archipelago, towards Helsingfors, a small town in the eastern part of the Swedish kingdom. Their mission was to search for a site to build a new fortress for the defence of Finland. Sweden had, in two previous wars with Russia, the Great Northern War, 1700–1721 and the Russo-Swedish War of 1741–1743, lost all her eastern fortifications: Viborg, Villmanstrand, Olofsborg and Fredrikshamn. Two plans had been discussed at headquarters by the leading military and politicians. The first envisaged a more defensive strategy with a new fortress at Tvärminne near the southwestern-most point of Finland, close to the entrance of the Gulf of Finland, and relatively far from the Russian border. The other plan was more offensive, with the new stronghold being placed outside Helsingfors. The senior officer was Augustin Ehrensvärd (1710–1772), and it was his mission to investigate the two places where the new fortress could be built. He was the perfect choice for this task. He had an outstanding sense for topography and knowledge about fortifications. After all, he had studied at the leading military school in Europe at that time, the French La Fère. However, Ehrensvärd was more than an expert on fortification and artillery; he was also part of the Swedish eighteenth-century cosmopolitan Enlightenment. As a child he became inspired by prints of Chinese and Japanese painting when he lived at Fullerö, an estate owned by his mother’s uncle, Count Jacob Cronstedt, and he copied these in his drawing book. He was enlisted as an artillery volunteer at 16, and two years later he enrolled at Uppsala University for a year. At 19, in 1729, he was introduced by a relative, the military reformer Carl Cronstedt, to Christopher Polhem. Ehrensvärd studied practical engineering for a summer at Stjernsunds bruk, Polhem’s home and his centre for technical innovation, and the two remained in contact for decades. In 1734, Ehrensvärd was appointed lieutenant in the artillery, and on Cronstedt’s recommendation he left Sweden for a two-year study tour to Denmark, Germany, France, the Low Countries and finally London in 1736. His mission was to enhance his knowledge in artillery and fortification, but he seems to have spent as much time studying French and Dutch paintings and drawing

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techniques. In London, moreover, he met his enlightened revelation through the writings of Alexander Pope; he read and possessed An Essay on Man in a French translation, Essai sur l’homme, from 1737. On his return to Sweden in 1738, he presented a memorandum for the establishment of a School of Artillery, based on the French example. The proposition was accepted by the Diet and Ehrensvärd was appointed as its first chief, kapten mathematicus och mechanicus, a position he held until 1746. Ehrensvärd’s scientific publications and lectures in military matters soon made him the leading expert in the field, and he was appointed to the Swedish Academy of Science as its ninth member in 1739. He came to serve as its secretary for a period and became a friend of Linnaeus, whose portrait he made in 1740. He served during the Russo-Swedish War, and gained further military expertise in 1745 when he participated in Prussia’s campaign in Bohemia as a Swedish observer.1 Ehrensvärd and his companions submitted their plan for the defence of Finland to the Diet in late 1747. The proposal suggested a combined land and sea fortress outside Helsingfors. The idea was both simple and brilliant: by making use of the islands in the archipelago, one could create a natural harbour and a place d’armes that could be defended from both land and sea. A similar combined system of fortification was to be built closer to the Russian border, at the recently privileged town of Lovisa. The plan was approved, and granted extensive financial backing through French subsidies. Ehrensvärd was given the task of transforming the barren islands outside Helsingfors into Sweden’s eastern lock: Sveaborg. Ehrensvärd’s plan from 1747 was based on lessons learnt from previous Russian invasions of Finland. No army could operate in the Finnish mainland if its maintenance depended on land transports, and although the Swedish war fleet had the upper hand on the open sea, the Russian archipelago fleet could transport both troops and provisions via the coastal channels and thus conquer Finland. What was needed was a Swedish coastal fleet that could restore the balance. It was to be based in Helsingfors, and able to block a Russian advance long enough for Swedish reinforcements to land in Finland. The construction of the two fortresses, Sveaborg and Svartholm outside Lovisa, started in 1748. Ehrensvärd moved to Finland, and soldiers from Finnish and Swedish regiments were commissioned for nine years to build the strongholds in the archipelago. Although following the principal idea of a bastion fortification, Ehrensvärd’s innovation was to integrate topographical elements in the construction, and to use natural formations as much as possible. Sveaborg was to be built on six islands, and a geometrical system of concentric belts or zones was applied. It was, according to af Hällström, a grandiose attempt to place

1   The best biography on Ehrensvärd is still Oscar Nikula, Augustin Ehrensvärd, Helsingfors: Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland 1960.

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a Central European bastion fortress on Finnish coastal islands; the result was an extremely irregular fortress.2 Due to Sweden’s engagement in the Seven Years War, work at Sveaborg came to an almost complete standstill. In the mid 1750s only the bastion fortress Gustavssvärd had been finished, along with the inner ring of bastions. The latter included the Great Courtyard, the first monumental square in Finland. In 1756 the Swedish Diet decided that a galley squadron should be formed in Finland, and based at Sveaborg. On a proposal by Ehrensvärd it was decided that this new archipelago fleet was to be subordinated to the Army, and not to the Fleet. On the return of peace, in 1763, the construction work at Sveaborg resumed, but in 1765 new problems arose. The Hats, who had dominated Swedish politics since 1738, lost their power, and as a leading Hat, Ehrensvärd also lost his position. However, as he was the leading expert in fortress construction, along with his battlefield experience, he was difficult to replace, and soon reinstated. Also of crucial importance was the establishment of the archipelago fleet, where he, together with the leading Swedish naval expert Fredrik Henrik af Chapman (1721–1808), designed new types of coastal frigate, to be built at the new shipyard at Sveaborg. Part of the harbour had been finished in 1758, while the rest, including a shipyard, was finished in 1764. Ehrensvärd’s plan for the fortress was never fully adopted. Although he had returned to the position as supervisor to the gigantic building complex in the late 1760s, funding the project remained troublesome. After the bloodless revolution of King Gustav III, in 1772, a new phase in the construction of Sveaborg began, but by then Ehrensvärd was already dead. The next two decades saw some additions to the fortress, but it remained incomplete. It played a significant role as a naval base during Gustav’s war with Russia between 1788 and 1790, but its real baptism of fire took place almost twenty years later when, in February 1808, Russia invaded Finland. However, it is fair to say that the military strength of Sweden’s eastern lock was never tested. After two months of siege, the fortress surrendered in May 1808. Sveaborg was built to block a military force invading from the east, as well as to serve as a place d’armes, so in many ways we might say that Sweden’s eastern lock was one of the least cosmopolitan places within the Swedish realm. Contrary to Leufsta bruk, discussed in the introduction, which was created as a place open towards the World, bar iron being sold on a global market and both global commodities and a cosmopolitan culture arriving in return, Sveaborg was constructed as a place for closing Swedish borders; the fortress was to be a lock! However, it never lived up to Ehrensvärd’s intentions; the lock was opened up from the inside in 1808. Moreover, it is questionable whether Sveaborg was a ‘non-cosmopolitan’ place. For a start, the plans drawn up by Ehrensvärd and his 2   For an outstanding presentation on the construction history of Sveaborg, see Olof af Hällström, Sveaborg – Viapori – Suomenlinna. The island fortress off Helsinki, Rungsted Kyst 1986.

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two compatriots, sailing through the Finnish archipelago in the summer of 1747, were compiled on ideas collected on tours in Europe and at La Fère; in many ways, Sveaborg was a military construction after the most recent European fashion. The long building process also meant that many people passed through its gates, and then came to spread influences from the gigantic building site; Sveaborg served as a relay station for the dissemination of cosmopolitan impulses from near and far. Large numbers of Finnish and Swedish soldiers worked every summer at the site, living in unpleasant barracks, but the fortress was also gradually turning into a partially civilian society. In 1775 Sveaborg counted about 3,400 inhabitants, including the wives and children of the garrison, while the town of Helsingfors housed merely 1,900 people. A church was missing from the islands, due to Ehrensvärd’s low esteem for the Lutheran State Church, but cultural life was growing, including people of rank from the nearby Helsingfors. This also included an embryonic form of scientific life, a kind of Linnaean and Enlightened forum; the kitchen gardens on the islands included novelties such as rhubarb, beetroot, horseradish, and bushes like the currant and hazelnut. In early summer the colour of the lilac is another living sign of the ‘Linnaean’ exchange that took place at Sveaborg in the closing eighteenth century. As one can imagine, Sveaborg was also turned into a kind of technological centre, as innovations and novelties were introduced to the construction work. A large windmill was constructed by Polhem’s pupil Daniel af Thunberg (1712– 1788) after 1749. It was an enormous construction with, according to af Hällström, the axles, cogs and spindles of which transmitted the motion of the mill blades in a plane always at right angles to the direction of the wind, to the slow rotation of the milestones in the horizontal plane and the swifter reciprocating motion of the saw in the same plane.3

Another noticeable technical piece was the Horse Pump, which emptied the galley docks. However, as made clear by af Hällström, a civilian could hardly find anything to copy inside the fortress, as neither the construction of houses nor ships in Finland was influenced by returning soldiers from Sveaborg. It is necessary, in concluding this discussion on cosmopolitan influences flowing through Sveaborg, to mention the important role the site had on cultural development within the Swedish realm towards the end of the century. To pick just one example, we could look to the early career of one of Sweden’s most important artists of the period: Elias Martin (1739–1818). When af Chapman left for Sveaborg in the summer 1763, to work with Ehrensvärd on the new galleys, he was accompanied by Martin who opted against a more formal education in Stockholm for the more informal training at Sveaborg. He was recruited as a draughtsman for the ornamentations of the galleys, but seems to have been mostly busy sketching the building site and the archipelago (Figure 14.1). He was soon   af Hällström, Sveaborg, p. 188.

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Figure 14.1 Sveaborg in Finland, tinted drawing by Elias Martin Source: Uppsala University Library.

taken under Ehrensvärd’s wing, who also taught him to paint with oil. In return, Martin came to be a teacher for Ehrensvärd’s son Carl August (see figures 11.1 and 11.2). In 1765 Martin was back in Stockholm, but he soon left for Paris and then spent many years as an artist in London. When he returned to Sweden in 1780 he did so to work for the King.4 4   Mikael Ahlund, Landskapets röster. Studier i Elias Martins bildvärld, Stockholm 2011, pp. 58–63.

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Ehrensvärd was already during his lifetime hailed as the creator of the ‘Gibraltar of the North’, as Sveaborg sometimes was seen. He had created a military fortress of significant strength, but Sveaborg was also an architectural masterpiece. At the heart of the fortress was the monumental and symmetrical Great Courtyard, with the Commander’s mansion, where Ehrensvärd lived, between two wings, the corps de garde. Opposing the mansion were two other buildings, formed as a crescent, closing the square off. The crescent was broken by a narrow passage on the central axis of the courtyard, separating the two buildings and forming the entrance to the courtyard. Today, only parts of the original courtyard exist, as several of the buildings were destroyed by English bombardment during the Crimean War in 1854.5 Augustin Ehrensvärd might have died in 1772, but he is still the focal point of Sveaborg, and in particular the courtyard. In 1783 his remains were taken from Helsingfors, and he was buried in the Great Courtyard. A memorial was, however, slow to develop, and it took more than 20 years to finish. By Gustav III’s order and sketch, a first version of the monument was drawn in 1777 by Jean-Eric Rehn, the man who was busy at Leufsta bruk in the late 1750s, but nothing came out of that. Another proposal was drawn by Carl August Ehrensvärd, the son, and was approved by the King in 1783. It was sent to the sculptor in vogue, Tobias Sergel, to be finalised, but he was not in a hurry to finish the project. After the assassination of Gustav III in 1792 the project was again shelved. It was 1807 before the monument over Augustin Ehrensvärd was finalised. Even after disregarding the statement that Sveaborg, as a fortress and a lock, was a kind of antithesis to a cosmopolitan place, ‘the Gibraltar of the North’ could still from a metaphorical point be viewed as the dawn of cosmopolitan eighteenthcentury Sweden, and especially so when considering what happened in May 1808. Augustin Ehrensvärd, the mastermind behind the fortress and a pivotal character of the Swedish Enlightenment, finally got his monument at the heart of his own creation, but after only a couple of months this heart was transferred from the Swedish realm into an aggressive and expanding Russian Empire; the Swedish hero buried in ground lost to an enemy. In this way both Ehrensvärd and Sveaborg could be seen as important links between Sweden and The Age of Revolution, discussed in the introduction to this book. Christopher Bayly, and others, meant that the period between 1780 and 1820 witnessed a radical rupture in societies all around the globe, ‘converging revolutions’, in which l’ancien régime was replaced by modernity. In a subsequent collection of essays, The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, the ambition was to expand such a view with penetrating analyses of regions not commonly discussed in revolutionary terms. The collection includes studies of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia and China, as well as more familiar cases. The two editors, David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam,

  af Hällström, Sveaborg, p. 167.

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state that ‘The Age of Revolutions […] encompass almost all the period’s major regions and polities’, and that their ambition is to ‘map the dimensions of change’.6 Sweden has hardly figured in this discussion, but it is obvious that the development during the last years of the Napoleonic Wars was a radical rupture in the Swedish development as well. French troops occupied Swedish Pomerania in 1807 as a consequence of Sweden’s participation in the Third Coalition, and the First War against Napoleon (1807–1810). Worse was to come. The FrancoRussian Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807 instigated Tsar Alexander to force Sweden to join the Continental System, resulting in the Finnish War of 1808–1809 and the loss of Finland, an integrated part of the Swedish realm ever since medieval times, sealed by the Treaty of Fredrikshamn in September 1809. Earlier in the same year, King Gustav IV Adolf was dethroned by a coup staged by officers and other powerful groups during the ongoing war with Russia. In the aftermath of all this, Sweden got a new Constitution and elected a new Crown Prince, the French Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte. He redirected Swedish foreign policy in a western direction and aimed at the incorporation of Norway. Sweden joined the Sixth Coalition while Denmark–Norway sided with Napoleon. As a consequence of the Danish defeat, Norway was ceded to Sweden while Denmark received Swedish Pomerania as compensation at the Treaty of Kiel in January 1814. However, the Norwegians rejected the terms of the treaty, resulting in a Swedish invasion, and only in November 1814 was the Union between Sweden and Norway formally established. Bayly gave adequate space to cultural aspects of the Age of Revolution in his book, although he gave them few explanatory powers. Armitage and Subrahmanyam stayed within the more traditional framework, of economic and political developments. A recent study by Tim Blanning is, at least from a European perspective, a suitable companion to this discussion, putting all the emphasis on cultural aspects. As indicated by his title, The Romantic Revolution, Blanning can also be placed as the last in the long line of scholars discussing the dawn of the eighteenth century in revolutionary terms; the romantic revolution must be ‘accorded the same status as the other revolutions’, although a clear ‘definition of romanticism has proved elusive’. However, Blanning’s book is a good attempt to delineate what distinguished eighteenth-century culture, and the Enlightenment, from the novel approaches that came to the fore from the dawn of the century.7 According to Blanning, the romantic revolution implied a switch from an objective science to individual expressions, from light to darkness, from life to death, and it was Hegel who gave the best definition of where this development   C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, Oxford 2004; David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds), The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840, London 2010. The quotation is from pp. xiii–xiv. 7   Tim Blanning, The Romantic Revolution, London 2011. The quotations are from pp. 1–2. 6

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ended; romanticism was about ‘absolute Innerlichkeit’. An important aspect of this development was a gradual shift away from the works of the artist towards the artist himself, and then, as an outcome, the cult of the genius. Gone were views that art was a taught activity, replaced by ideas that an artist should articulate ‘what he sees within him’.8 The story of the Ehrensvärd monument at the centre of the Great Courtyard at Sveaborg fits well into such a view. The enlightened Ehrensvärd was the maker of a fortress built according to both military and architectural principles learned during a tour in Europe. Thirty-five years after his death, in 1807, he finally got his burial monument at the very centre of his own work, as a celebration of the hero, or the genius. One could very well say that he died as an Enlightenment figure but was buried as a romantic hero. In retrospect, it is quite obvious that Sweden was integrated in the process historians, ever since Hobsbawm’s masterpiece from 1962, have called the Age of Revolution; the Napoleonic wars re-drew the boundaries of Europe, and Sweden lost Finland in the process. The decades on both sides of 1800 also meant a cultural rupture, and even if the example with Ehrensvärd being buried in his own work is a minor case, it is still clear that the Swedish cultural sphere witnessed change. Having said that, as well as giving more ‘proofs’ of the global dimension of this Age of Revolution, we have in this book used a different approach to reach such a conclusion. Our ambition has not been, as it was for Armitage and Subrahmanyam, to ‘map the dimensions of change’, with a compressed chronology and an expanded space, but instead we have opted to travel along the timeline of the Swedish eighteenth century. We wanted to tell a story of how change and development gradually became a feature in Sweden, something Swedes experienced but also something they gradually began to strive for. And we have done so, without including the more familiar names of the Swedish eighteenth century; we have told a story without Gustav III, Linnaeus or Bellman, and it does not feature Swedenborg or Bergman. Instead, our story circulates around events, processes and people not that familiar. In telling our story, three features really stand out. For a start, we have uncovered a pattern of a slow and gradual development. We began our kaleidoscopic treatment by viewing how Christopher Polhem tried to create a universal language and a mechanical alphabet within the God-created mechanistic world. Such a view of the world did not last long, and change began to make inroads in agriculture, music and industry. From mid-century we can also detect small steps taken within the Lutheran doctrine and the art scene towards a softening of prior dogmatic rules and guidelines. From a Swedish point of view there was also a radical change in how war and peace were perceived, and the discussion about colour is also revealing. It lost its prior role in the sartorial code, but gained one in the nascent racial categorisation. The end of the century was ‘a different world’ compared with Polhem’s mechanistic universe. Manners saw a development along the same lines as the sartorial codes, with a more fluid social spectrum, but slavery posed   Blanning, The Romantic Revolution, pp. 9 and 31.

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problems to Swedish society. On the one hand a ‘mechanistic’ attitude reigned at Gustavia, with a dividing line between whites and blacks, but on the other hand compassionate voices were heard for an abolition of this divide. The second feature that stands out is the extent to which the cosmopolitan dimension of Swedish society influenced this process of change. We set out to analyse eighteenth-century Sweden in a wider global setting, and our results indicate its importance. It is beyond doubt that tobacco changed Swedish agriculture, but also consumption patterns. A similar process of foreign exposure and Swedish adaptations is visible on the music scene, in industrial developments and on the market for prints. When dealing with peace it is clear that the ‘non-Swedish’ dimension exerted a more obvious influence, with the threat of war with hostile neighbours, but the debate about neutrality was also affected by an international literature. The acquisition of Gustavia also had an obvious, and material, influence, as Sweden instantly became a colonial power and populated with slaves; the Swedish state actually used slaves to build a port. A different relation is seen in the discussion about manners, where both foreign ways and goods were perceived as a threat to Swedish life. The treatment of compassion, by Bengt Lidner, might be seen as a process in which the global and cosmopolitan features of the end of the eighteenth century was brought into the heart of Swedish readers; a possible echo of Rousseau’s problem of merging the idea of cosmopolitanism with an everyday life of global exposure. The third and perhaps most prominent feature of the Swedish eighteenth century we have followed in this book is what in the introduction was called the ‘curious cosmopolitanism’, with its ambition of learning more about people and places all around the globe. This book has certainly been more about connections between Sweden and other European places than between Sweden and the World, but the ‘curious’ element is almost omnipresent throughout our text; from those peasants and burgers who tried tobacco cultivation, Bengt Ferrner, the operaloving astronomer, or Anders Chydenius who wanted to open Sweden to people from other countries and with other confessions, to Samuel Schröder who gazed at the industriousness of the people in Birmingham. In this catalogue we also have to include Christopher Polhem, who was even prepared to learn from what took place on the moon, and Bengt Lidner, who never wrote anything from his own journey to Africa, but still travelled the world in his writings. From what these curious cosmopolitans saw, read or heard about foreign people, places or events, they responded, and in doing so they also made change, or history, for that matter, happen. * * * Sveaborg has not only been a dividing line in Swedish history for this project, distinguishing between an enlightened cosmopolitan eighteenth century and a modern, perhaps romantic, nineteenth century; Sveaborg was also the end point to our project about Sweden in the eighteenth century. Our last workshop was held

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at this ‘Gibraltar of the North’ in June 2011. This was the last time we discussed our texts together, in the multidisciplinary fashion that was the starting point to our project. In a minor way, we might say that our work that time became more cosmopolitan, as the group was joined by three colleagues, one Swede, one Briton and one Dutch, as commentators. During our seminars and walks around the fortress we were thus both (curious) cosmopolitans and ‘multi-discipliners’. The fortress Sveaborg was the end of a journey that began at Leufsta bruk.

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Index

Åbo 126, 178, 276, 319, 324 Academy of Agriculture (Royal Academy of Agriculture) 73 Academy of Science (Royal Academy of Science) 52, 58, 72–73, 81, 98, 326 Acadia 305 Adam 51 Adelcrantz, Carl Fredrik 164–165, 173 adjective 43, 53 Adolf Fredrik, Swedish King 155–157 adverb 43 Aeolus 312 Africa 80, 92, 216, 225, 228–229, 232, 254, 256, 262, 273, 275, 277–278, 281, 288–289, 296, 304, 314–315, 324 Age of Liberty 28, 36, 58, 121, 251, 269, 314 Age of revolutions 67, 13, 301, 330–332 Agriculture 8, 20, 67, 69–70, 72–74, 76, 85, 128, 181, 186, 211, 332–333 Akrel, Fredrik 152 alcohol 85, 91 algebra 47 Almqvist, Anders 87–88 alphabet 47–48, 59 alphabet, mechanical 29, 59–60, 62, 332 Alsted, Johann Heinrich 46 Alströmer, Clas 112–113 Alströmer, Patrick (Patrik) 112, 118, 304–306 America 9, 30, 84–85, 121, 175, 186, 204, 209, 217–221, 223, 225–230, 233–235, 237–238, 241, 243–245, 250, 273, 275–278, 281, 287–288, 294, 297, 303–311, 314–315, 320, 323–324, 330 Amsterdam 1, 3, 35–37, 97, 100, 128 antiquity 37, 80, 92, 97, 231, 311 aristocracy 36, 93, 96, 118, 154, 194, 271, 307 aristotelian 44, 46, 48

Aristotle 44, 46, 64, 173, 263 arithmetic 47, 72 Armitage, David 13, 24, 330–332 art 2, 3, 6, 11–13, 15, 21–22, 25–26, 28, 47–48, 51, 54–55, 72, 95–96, 98, 102, 104–106, 109, 117, 121, 128, 147, 149–150, 158, 160, 164–166, 172–173, 273, 332 art, liberal 12 art, mechanical 12 Artaserse 99 artisan 10, 25, 28, 30, 121, 124, 126–127, 130–142, 144, 154, 259, 264–265 Asia 12, 50, 80–81, 85, 92, 217–218, 262, 314, 322, 330 Atlantic 1, 5, 24, 124, 133, 204, 209, 214, 216–218, 227, 229, 273, 275, 277–278, 287, 311, 315 Atlantis 51 attraction 145, 147–149, 155, 165, 174, 320 Aurell, Samuel 303 authority 35–36, 76, 119, 189, 256–257, 272 Babel, Tower of 39, 48–49, 51 Bacon, Francis 39, 47–48, 64 Bagge, Carl Fredrik 290 Baker, Thomas 49 ballet 99, 309 Baltic 33–36, 71, 79, 204, 214–216, 218, 221, 275, 277 Barbados 228, 310 Barbarian 207, 273, 288, 317, 320 Barbary states 216, 315 Barbella, Emmanuele 115 Basan, Pierre François 147, 163 Batavia 303, 309, 311–313, 315, 317, 322, 324 Baudouin, Pierre Antoine 169 Bayly, Christopher 12–14, 21, 27, 227, 330–331

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Beauvarlet, Jacques Firmin 170 Becher, Johann Joachim 47 Beck, Cave 48 Becker, Carl 25–26 Beckman, Johann 62 beer 34, 85, 255 Beggar’s Opera 97 Bellman, Carl Michael 301, 332 Benzelius, Eric, the Younger 45 Berch, Anders 71–73, 82, 127–128, 144 Berg, Maxine 7, 12, 22, 163–164, 249–252 Bergerac, Cyrano de 43 Bergman, Torben 332 Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste 331 Bible 82–83, 308 Birmingham 123, 129–134, 137, 140–141, 333 Björn, Dirik Gabriel 287 Black Sea 317 Blanning, Tim 11, 331–332 Bloch, Marc 22–23 Board of Agriculture 73 Board of Commerce 124, 129, 134, 140 Bodmer, Johann Jakob 310 body 13, 41–42, 50, 55, 145, 149, 161, 165–168, 172–174, 226, 231, 234–235, 247 Bokwettsgillet 45 Boswell, James 108 Boucher, François 3, 170 Boulton, Matthew 140–142 Boydell, John 147 Braudel, Fernand 22–24, 27, 85–86 Britain 7, 10–11, 13, 21, 26–27, 30, 71–72, 75, 79, 121, 123, 129, 133, 135, 137, 141–142, 204, 206, 201–210, 212, 214, 216, 218–221, 269, 273, 283, 288, 304, 314 bruk (Swedish iron-making communities) 16, 26–27, 134, 136, 138, 325, 327, 330, 334 Brutus, Lucius Junius 322 Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de 34 Bureus, Johannes 45 Burney, Charles 102, 110–111 calculus 39, 47, 50 Campioni, Carlo Antonio 111–112

cantatrice italienne 98, 107 Cape Town 304 Carlander, Christopher 281, 285, 289–291, 295 Carleson, Edward 81, 83 Caroline Mathilde, Danish queen, 322–323 cartesian 44 category/ies 12, 18, 24, 31, 39, 46, 58, 62–65, 111, 150, 163–164, 226, 228–229, 231–235, 245–246, 261, 281, 301–302, 312, 323 categorisation 46–47, 50, 59, 63–64, 225–227, 235, 281, 317, 332 Catherine the Great 219–220, 320 catholicism 185, 187–189, 237, 278, 284, 305 Cato the elder 322 Caucasus 322 Censorship 182, 191, 313 Ceylon 27, 322, 324 Chapman, Fredik Henrik, af 327–328 Charles XII 28 chemistry 28, 59, 128 child murder 303, 316–318, 322–323 China 13, 15, 81, 85, 217, 278, 303–304, 330 chocolate 85 choreography 50 chorus 312 Christ 39, 321–323 Christiansted 281 Chydenius, Anders 30, 175, 177–199, 279, 333 citizeness 306 classification 39, 46, 48, 50–51, 55, 58–59, 63–64 clothing 93, 223, 225–227, 237–246, 293 coffee 26, 36, 85, 90, 130, 258, 265–266, 273 cognition 173 Colchis 316–317 coleurs 237 Collegium curiosorum 44 colour 31, 54, 130, 166, 189, 223, 225–229, 231–246, 277–278, 282–283, 285, 291–292, 294, 310, 328, 332 Columella 80–81 Comenius, Jan Amos 47–48

Index commerce 12, 18, 20, 36, 39, 86–87, 129, 147, 205, 207–208, 213, 216, 218–220, 286, 294 commons 75–77 compassion 31, 299, 301, 304, 306, 312, 316–317, 319, 322–324, 333 complexion 226–227, 231–233, 235–236, 244–246, 285 consonants 43, 52–53, 55, 62 constitution 36, 109, 121, 137, 139, 184, 186, 262, 269, 305, 308, 314, 331 consumption 9, 12, 85–86, 88, 90–91, 145, 148, 155, 165, 214, 226, 247, 249–252, 259, 261, 265, 267, 269, 271–272 contraband 204, 208–209, 213–215, 218–219 contract 70, 193, 294, 305 Copernicus, Nicolaus 42 cosmopolitan 1, 36, 16–18, 25–31, 34, 39, 41, 43, 46, 52, 55, 58, 64–65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 84, 92, 95, 105, 109, 113, 118–119, 159, 178, 188–190, 198–199, 247, 273, 276, 280–281, 285, 296–297, 303–304, 307–308, 324–325, 327–328, 330, 333–334 cosmopolitanism 1, 16–19, 21, 25–27, 29–31, 37, 39, 59, 67, 71, 227, 231, 250–251, 269, 308, 333 cosmos 39, 41, 46, 65, 67, 149 Covent Garden 97, 100–101 Creutz, Gustaf Philip 314, 317 Crichelli, Pasquale 112 Cronander, Samuel 251, 254, 258–259, 261, 265, 267–268 cultivation 8, 29, 67, 74, 81, 84, 86–88, 90–93, 95–97, 103–106, 118, 178, 290, 333 cultural exchange 96, 103, 117–118 cultural transfer 303, 309 cultural turn 11, 13, 323 Dahlman, Sven 280–281, 289–290 Dalgarno, George 48, 55 Danviken hospital 312, 322 Day of Judgment 319 decoration 30, 99, 145, 155, 162–164, 166–168, 174, 228, 239, 246 De Galne 322

347

De Geer family 1–5, 26, 35, 307 De Iure Revolutionis Americanorum 304 Deckberg, Olof 88 dedication 115–116, 155, 304–305 definition 16–18, 25, 63–64, 175, 204, 208–209, 219, 228, 231, 264, 296, 331 Defoe, Daniel 12 Descartes, René 39, 44, 47 deserters 231 Devin du Village, Le 98, 108 Diderot, Denis 34, 12, 18–20, 25, 104, 150, 223, 315 Diet (parliament) 69, 86, 90, 127, 129, 133, 138, 143, 177, 180–181, 183–185, 191, 196, 199, 234, 265, 279, 291, 296–297, 316, 326–327 discourse 13, 70, 73,76, 86, 91, 106, 145, 155, 161, 164, 166–168, 172–174, 182–183, 201, 204–205, 208, 210, 235, 249–251, 268–270, 272, 299, 303, 308, 314–315, 324 discursive 6, 107, 145, 159, 161–162, 167, 303, 305, 313 dissertation 303–307 division of labour 89, 25, 128, 130–133, 136–142, 207, 250 Drottningholm 3, 34 Drouai, François–Hubert 115 Dutch 12, 4, 34–35, 81, 87–88, 101, 137, 163, 184, 206–210, 213–218, 220, 273, 276, 280–281, 283–284, 304, 309, 311, 313, 325, 334 East India Company 26, 217, 270, 303–306, 314 economics 9, 17, 45, 71–72, 74, 81, 91, 198, 247 Ehrensvärd, Augustin 325–330, 332 Ehrensvärd, Carl August 257, 260, 330 element/s 44, 47–48, 53, 59–60, 78, 154, 158, 163, 178, 192, 196, 198, 212, 223, 244, 258, 310–311, 326, 333 elite 36, 51, 67, 69–70, 72–74, 81, 83–84, 91, 127, 152–153, 230, 270, 303, 312 enclosure 8, 29, 69, 74–78, 92

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encyclopaedia/encyclopédie 34, 16, 18, 39, 46–48, 74, 83, 104, 149–150, 158–161, 166, 168, 171–172, England 7, 45, 48, 51, 54, 76, 92, 95, 112, 129–130, 143, 150, 184, 226, 228, 239, 243, 271 enlightenment 3, 9–10, 12, 14–19, 21–22, 25, 30, 93, 118, 121, 145, 160–161, 175, 177, 184, 188, 229, 247, 267, 278, 287, 297, 299, 301–302, 306, 308, 310–311, 313, 322–325, 330–332 enlightenment, industrial 10 episteme 58 epistemology 159, 198, 223, 234, 245 Erdman Isert, Paul 288 Eskilstuna 30, 121, 123–129, 134, 138, 140–143 essence 63, 124 export 26, 35–36, 123–127, 135–136, 209, 216, 218, 258, 291, 314 Euphrasén, Bengt Anders 281, 285, 294–295 Euripides 317 factory 7, 87, 90, 133–134, 136, 138–140, 303 faculty 172, 305 Faggot, Jacob 76–77 Fahlberg, Samuel 281–282, 290 family 1, 34, 95, 113, 118, 154, 178, 192, 210, 219, 230, 259, 266, 271–272, 303–304, 307, 312–313, 319 fashion 14, 26–27, 33, 106, 117, 134, 162, 164–165, 167, 174, 253–254, 258, 261–262, 264, 269, 271, 328 femininity 167, 250–251, 253, 261–262, 271 Ferrner, Bengt 95–103, 105–109, 115–118, 333 fiction 299, 301–303, 311, 313, 318–319, 324 Finland 29, 33, 36, 178, 233, 319, 322, 325–329, 331–332 Floding, Per 153, 155–156, 158, 162–163 Foigny, Gabriel de 44 Fontenelle, Bernard de 41 Fop 252–253, 258–259, 262, 268, 270 Forsskål, Peter 121, 181

Foucault, Michel 10, 58, 149 France 2, 7–10, 21, 28, 34, 51, 70, 77, 81, 95, 99, 108, 129, 150, 155, 204, 206, 209–210, 214, 216, 218–221, 226, 263, 269, 274, 278, 283, 286, 308, 314, 325 freedom 36, 62, 73, 121, 132–133, 175, 177, 180–187, 189–196, 220, 227, 254–255, 263, 267, 280, 288, 294, 304, 306, 311–312, 314, 320 freedom of speech 181 free port 214, 276–277, 279, 291 Fux, Johann Joseph 103–104 Galiani, Ferdinando 207–208, 219–220 Galilei, Galileo 42 gallantry 145, 171–173 Galuppi, Baldassare 111–112 Gay, Peter 313 Gazette de Leyde 307 Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott 310 gender 11, 31, 160–161, 172, 174, 228, 240, 246–247, 249–252, 254, 261–264, 269–272, 276, 315, 323 general public 178, 307, 320, 324 Genesis 39, 48, 55 Genoa 99 gentleman farmers 70–72 Georgia 317 Germany 17, 29, 33, 45, 51, 95, 129, 210, 269, 325 Gervasio, Giovanni Battista 115–117 Gessner, Salomon 310 Gibbon, Edward 15–16, 25–26 Gillberg, Jacob 150–152, 162 Gimo bruk 95–96, 109–110, 112–113, 115–117 Gissler, Nils 79–80 Gjörwell, Carl Christoffer 150, 160 global history 13–14, 16, 22–25 globalisation 13, 18–19, 21, 23, 25–27, 70, 85, 223, 225–229, 231, 246, 324 God 39, 54–55, 63, 67, 91, 127, 175, 184, 186–187, 192–195, 197–198, 201, 262, 266, 270, 305–306, 312, 315, 323, 332 Godwin, Francis 44 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, von 299, 322–323 Gonsales, Domingo 44 Götheborgs Allehanda 307–309, 315

Index Goldsmith, Oliver 17 Göteborg 26, 33–34, 36, 125, 134, 217, 275–276, 285, 288, 303–304, 307–308, 324 Gotland 45, 77 Graciàn, Baltasar 106 grammar 41, 43, 52 grand tour 95–97, 118, 210, 212 Gray, Thomas 323 Great Northern War 35–36, 325 Greece 80, 308, 317 Greifswald 304–306, 309, 324 Grill, Anthoni 100 Gulf of Finland 325 Gulliver, Lemuel 44 Gustav II Adolf 33–34 Gustav III 28, 30, 36, 118, 140, 150, 155, 180, 185–186, 218, 221, 273, 275, 278–279, 285–287, 305–306, 309–310, 314, 317, 319–320, 323, 327, 330, 332 Gustav IV Adolf 28, 331 Gustavia 142–143, 273, 276, 281–286, 289–292, 295–297, 333 Hälsingland 54, 79 Händel, Georg Friedrich 3, 100–101 Hansen, Adolf Fredrik 284, 290 Harvey, David 19 Hastfer, Eva Jaquette 301, 322 heathen 228, 312, 322 Heinichen, Johann David 103, 105 Hellzén, Pehr 79, 83 Helman, Isidore-Stanislas 169 Helsingfors/Helsinki 33, 325–326, 328, 330 henpecked husband 256–257, 262, 270 Herodotus 14, 16, 22 hieroglyphics 50 Hobsbawn, Eric 67, 10, 13, 20–21, 79, 332 Holmberg, Christopher 150, 319 Holmén, Bengt 254–255, 259 honour 29, 33, 35, 71, 182, 261, 320–321 Holland 1, 95, 97, 216 Horace 64 household/s 9, 74, 87, 90, 92, 127, 134, 230, 249–250, 254–255, 257–259, 261–262, 266, 270, 272, 293–294, 296 Hübner, Martin 205, 210–216, 218–219 Hülpher, Abraham 79

349

human rights 177–178, 191–192, 299, 306 humankind 50, 63, 213, 268, 299, 301, 303, 306, 308, 322–323 Hume, David 93, 104–106, 121, 164, 207 husband 230, 240, 253–257, 260, 262, 265, 270–272, 301, 315, 317, 320 Huygens, Christiaan 41 ideal 25, 91, 93, 103, 105–106, 114, 118, 155, 161, 173, 184, 187–188, 207, 230, 244, 251, 253, 258–259, 267, 270–272, 303–304, 306, 308, 310, 313–314, 317, 319, 321–323 identification 37, 51, 233 identity 37, 113, 187–188, 190, 199, 203, 227, 235, 244, 285 improvement 14, 71, 123, 161, 163–164, 269–270, 301 Inca realm 310 industry 1, 3, 8, 27, 35–36, 45, 70, 83, 86–88, 118, 123–125, 128, 137, 139, 194, 211, 332 Inkle and Yarico 310–311, 316 Israelites 312 Ivarsdotter, Anna 310 Janiçon, Françoise Marguerite 263, 268 Jefferson, Thomas 307 Jerusalem 322 John, evangelist 39 Jomelli, Nicolo 112 Joseph II 314, 322 Kabbalah 45 Kant, Immanuel 17, 19, 93 Kellgren, Johan Henric 289 Kircher, Athanasius 46, 50 Kryger, Johan Frederic 251, 259, 265 language 20, 24, 29, 39, 41–55, 58–59, 62, 64–65, 82–83, 98, 102, 128, 182, 223, 225, 228, 231, 249, 254, 271, 284, 299, 305–306, 309, 317, 324, 332 language, artificial 48, 51–52, 64 language, Chinese 45 language, English 48, 128, 284, 305 language, Gothic 45 language, Hebrew 45, 51

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language, Latin 39, 41, 43, 45, 48, 51–52, 103, 304–306, 323 language, natural 46, 48, 55 language, philosophy of 45 language, Saami 45 language, Swedish 29, 45, 52, 306 language, universal 29, 39, 41, 44–55, 58–59, 62, 64–65, 332 lapis philosophorum 53 Lapland 45, 88, 178, 181 Laputa 62 Låstbom, Johan 72–73, 82 League of Armed Neutrality 30, 201, 204–205, 208, 210, 216–217, 219–221 Lefebure, Jean 95–97, 99–101, 105–106, 108–113, 115–118 Lefebure, Johan Henrik 95 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von 39, 45, 47, 50, 62 Leiden 97 Leone, Gabriele 113–114, 117 Leufsta bruk 15, 26–27, 36, 118, 135, 307, 327, 330, 334 lexicon 46, 48, 52, 54 libertine 319 libretto 301, 310, 312, 317, 319 Liedner, Olof 303 Liljencrantz, Johan 140, 142, 211, 279 L’Infant d’Harlequin 98 linguistics 1, 9–10, 39, 45, 48, 52, 55 Linnaeus, Carl 3, 30–31, 34–37, 49, 58, 88, 121, 326, 332 Llull, Ramón 62 local 5, 24, 78, 83–84, 91–92, 100, 111, 118, 149–150, 247, 264–265, 276–277, 280, 285–286, 293–294, 301, 303, 305–308, 315, 320, 324 Lodwick, Francis 48 logic 46–47, 63–64, 163, 167, 223, 226, 313 London 18, 36, 97, 99, 101–102, 109, 112, 129–131, 141, 147, 149, 153, 211–212, 288, 325–326, 329 Louis XIV 11, 14, 28, 34, 109 Lund 35, 71–72, 81, 303, 324 Lund, Pehr, af 287–288 lutheranism 34, 184, 191

luxury 12, 31, 86, 121, 145, 150, 163–165, 167–168, 171, 173–174, 249–255, 258–259, 261, 264–271 machines 2, 29, 39, 41, 59–60, 62–63, 78–79, 81, 83, 98, 124, 134, 136 Maclean, Rutger 77 manliness 252–253 manner/s 15, 31, 96, 106–107, 117, 152, 181, 233, 235, 247, 251, 256, 259, 266, 269, 332–333 manufacture 8, 45, 67, 70, 95–96, 126–127, 130, 132, 134, 137–139, 142, 145, 186 Marcello, Benedetto 110–111 Marmontel, Jean-François 310 marriage 155, 188, 230, 249–251, 254–256, 258, 262–263, 268, 270, 303, 311 Martin, Elias 328–329 masculinity 167, 250–251, 253–254, 256, 261–262, 270–272 Massachusetts 319 mathematics 47–49, 54, 59, 62–63, 98, 128, 326 McDonagh, Josephine 316 mechanics 52, 59 mechanistic world view 29–31, 39, 59, 62, 67, 332–333 Medea 301, 312, 317–318, 322–323 Mediterranean 22, 81, 84, 211, 216–220, 278, 308, 311, 315 Meikle, Andrew 78–79 memory 33, 48–49, 159–160, 172 mercantilism 29, 36, 67, 70, 123–124, 127, 138, 142, 144, 184, 215, 276 Messina 301 metaphor 7, 10, 43, 46–47, 59, 62–64, 93, 104, 141, 154, 159, 254, 268, 306, 309–310 Milan 99 Miller, Christopher L. 311, 315 Milot och Eloisa 303, 309–310, 317 mining 35, 41, 45, 92, 128, 131 Miranda, Francisco de 62 Mocquet, Jean 310 Molière 98 Möller, Johann Georg 305

Index Montesquieu, Charles–Louis de Secondat 34, 15, 19, 104, 196, 263, 305–306, 311 Montgolfier brothers 322 moon 41–44, 49–50, 64, 333 morality 17, 19, 195–196, 254, 262 motherhood 323 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 97, 114 Munck, Petrus 251, 255–256 music 3, 6, 11, 26, 29, 34, 44, 50, 54, 59, 93, 95–103, 107–119, 148, 154, 166, 299, 317, 332–333 mythology 312 Naples 99, 113, 115, 117, 158, 220 nation/national 10, 13, 15, 18–20, 22–23, 27, 33, 35–36, 46, 50–52, 55, 67, 70–74, 76, 91, 96, 103–104, 107, 117, 126–127, 129, 133, 149, 155, 160, 162, 164, 177, 182, 184–188, 190, 209, 213, 221, 228, 250, 256, 258, 261, 263–264, 266, 269–270, 273, 275–276, 279, 303, 305–306, 308–309, 313, 315, 317 natural history 35, 72, 74 natural law 70, 197–198, 204, 210–215, 219, 315–316, 323 Neapolitan mandolin 113–117 Neostadius, Johan 87–88 Nero 53, 308 network 18, 35, 133, 147, 163, 168, 307 Netherlands 1, 4, 82, 84, 256 neutrality 20, 34, 201, 203–211, 213–221, 277, 306, 333 New Jersey 231, 235–236, 238, 240 New York 229, 231, 235–236, 238, 240–241 newspapers 149–150, 153, 159, 230, 251, 273, 287–288, 307, 309 nomenclature 58 Norderling, Johan 290 Nordenskiöld, Ulrich 289 Norrköping 95, 127, 140 North American colonies 275, 277, 314 Norway 45, 73, 88, 232–233, 331 noun 43, 53 Nova Zembla 324 novel 11, 44, 253, 299, 310–311, 322–323 Nyman, Magnus 288, 304, 307–309, 313–315, 321–322

351

O’Brien, Karen 11, 14, 16, 19 O’Brien, Patrick 13–14 occasional poetry 303 Ödmann, Samuel 286 Oldendorp, Chrisitan Georg Andreas 286 open field 75–78, 89 opera 97–102, 107–109, 111–112, 114–115, 118, 301, 303, 309–312, 317, 319 opéra comique 98, 303, 309, 312, 315–316 orient 263, 309–311 Örnsköld, Per 83 Orrelius, Magnus 251, 265–266 Ossian 299, 323 Ottoman Empire 311 Outram, Dorinda 301, 307, 313, 315–316, 324 Oxford 48 pamphlets 73–74, 79, 81, 87–88, 108, 154, 180, 191–192, 212, 223, 251, 254–255, 262, 268 Pan 312 Paradise Lost 100 paratext 305 Paris 1, 97–98, 101, 107–108, 112, 115, 117–118, 147, 149, 158, 171, 220, 276, 306, 314, 316–317, 324, 329 Pascal, Blaise 62 pasigraphy 50 passions 88, 166–167, 173, 253–255, 257, 271, 299 Patriotic Society 73 patron 219, 301, 305–306, 309, 319 Peabody, Sue 311, 315, 319–320 peace 30, 34, 47, 185–186, 190, 201, 203, 209, 213–216, 221, 235, 254, 257, 276, 293, 306, 327, 332–333 Peace of Nystad 27–28 peasant 27, 36, 69–75, 78–79, 81, 83–84, 87–88, 90–92, 118, 193, 237, 241–242, 244–245, 265–267, 293, 296, 333 pedagogics 45 people 6, 9, 11–16, 18–19, 22, 24, 30, 34–35, 39, 41–44, 46, 48–51, 53, 59, 63–65, 67, 71, 73, 90, 98–99, 118, 121, 125–128, 130–132, 136, 138, 140, 160, 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 192–194, 196,

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223, 226–228, 230–231, 235, 237, 246–247, 251–254, 264–268, 270, 281, 283–284, 305, 307, 320–321, 328, 332–333 Peru 310, 322 Peter III 320 philosophy 19, 25, 37, 44–46, 48, 62, 121, 198, 201, 204, 210, 212 phonology 52 physics 45, 48, 55 physiocrats 70, 72 plantation 67, 86–87, 89–91, 273, 275, 277, 284, 286–287, 290–293, 297, 311 plants 48, 58–59, 67, 73, 84, 87, 92, 171, 263, 312 pleasure 11, 58, 102, 104, 145, 160, 164–168, 171–174, 258, 261, 268–269, 271–272 plostellum poenicum 80–82 poetics 304 poetry 31, 59, 72, 93, 166, 301–304, 309, 316–317, 319–320, 322–324 Poisson, Jeanne-Antoinette, Marquise de Pompadour 115 Polhem, Christoper 29, 39, 41–45, 47–49, 51–60, 62–63, 136, 325, 328, 332–333 political language 254 Pomeranz, Kenneth 13–14 Pope, Alexander 326 population 19, 22, 26, 35, 51, 69–71, 74, 77, 86, 88, 90, 125, 127, 186, 190, 240, 249, 258, 262, 266–268, 273, 276–277, 282–284, 286, 291, 293–297, 307 porphyry 46 post-colonialism 25 potato 74, 84, 91 press 172, 177, 180–184, 190–191, 288, 303, 307–308, 314–315, 319, 321, 324 priest 45, 52, 67, 74, 78–79, 83, 92, 150, 175, 177, 185, 189, 251, 284 print/s 30, 109, 145, 147–150, 152–155, 158–163, 165, 168, 171–174, 207, 324–325, 333 print culture 159, 161 print market 148, 150, 154 privatization 75–77

Produktplakatet 36, 279 probability 47 proto industrialisation 78 public debate 183, 247, 249–252, 267–269 public sphere 130, 161, 249, 251, 319 Pugnani, Gaetano 112 Querelle des Bouffons 108 Quintilian 64 race 11, 187, 207, 223, 226, 228–229, 234–236, 277, 311, 315 Racine, Jean 98 Raguenet, François 108 Rajalin, Salomon Mauritz, von 279–280, 289–291 Rålamb, Åke 54, 86 Rameau, Jean-Baptiste 98 ramism 46 Raynal, abbé 19, 287–288, 303, 313–317, 319–320 Réamur, René Antoine, de 3 Rehn, Jean Eric 23, 5, 26, 330 religion 6, 13–14, 44, 47–48, 175, 177–178, 180, 183–190, 196, 201, 228, 263, 267, 278–280, 284, 323 religious freedom 175, 185–186, 191 religious poetry 303 religious tolerance 175, 189–191, 278, 314 repertoire 28, 105, 111, 114, 117–118, 287, 312 republic 34–35, 77, 206, 210, 214, 283, 306, 322 republic of letters 18, 305, 307 revolution, agricultural 8, 10, 69 revolution, American 9, 287–288, 308, 314 revolution, consumer 89, 27, 90 revolution, cultural 10–11, 21 revolution, ‘dual’ 6, 8, 10–11, 20–21 revolution, French 79, 27, 121, 203–204, 221, 283, 299 revolution, industrial 7–10, 20, 27 revolution, industrious 9–10, 12, 27 revolution, military 34 revolution, romantic 331 revolution, scientific 8, 10, 48 rhetoric 48, 107, 160–161, 253, 273, 288, 316, 321, 323

Index Risi, Paolo 112 Roche, Daniel 6, 12, 21, 24, 225, 228, 238 Rome 53, 80, 306, 308, 317 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 34, 17–19, 98, 108, 111, 150, 167, 299, 308, 319–320, 323, 333 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 52, 58, 72–73, 81, 98, 326 Rudbeck, Olof, the Elder 51 Rudbeck, Olof, the Younger 45, 86 runaways 223, 226–227, 229–234, 237–238, 240–241, 243–246 Runemark, Henrik Gustaf 153 runes 45, 51 Russia 30, 33–34, 36, 45, 123, 139, 180, 188, 201, 203–205, 218–221, 237, 275, 277, 320–321, 325–327, 330–331 Russo-Swedish War 325–326 Rustan och Mirza 317 Saami 41–43, 45 Sahlgren, Catharina Christina 303 Sahlgren, Niclas 303 St Barthélemy 29, 142, 216, 273, 275–282, 285–286, 288–289, 296–297 St Croix 284, 292 St Domingue 277, 283 St Eustatius 216, 276 St Jan 277, 291–292 St Jean 280 St Petersburg 33, 158, 219–220 Sarti, Giuseppe 101 scars 233 Schefferus, Johannes 42 Schott, Gaspar 46–47, 54 Schröder, Samuel, ennobled as Schröderstierna 123, 128–142, 144, 333 Schürer, Joseph 163, 171 science 39, 44, 48, 51–53, 58, 72–74, 76, 81, 95, 98, 121, 127, 148, 153, 160, 164, 178, 264, 266, 302, 326, 331 semantic/s 46–47, 52, 64, 162–163, 165, 168, 302, 326, 331 senses 53, 55, 58, 145, 166–167, 172–174, 302, 314 sensibility 106, 301, 304, 306, 316

353

sentimental/sentimentality 299, 301, 313, 315–317, 319–324 Sergel, Tobias 330 servants 35, 54, 121, 127, 142, 154, 180, 191–196, 227, 229, 231, 234–241, 243–244, 256, 264, 290–291, 293–294, 297, 315 Serva padrona, La 98, 108 Seven Years War 204–205, 210–216, 218, 327 sexual system 58 Shaw, Joseph 108 Siam 309 sight 53–54, 158–159, 166, 172–173, 278 signs 26, 39, 46–47, 50, 55, 161, 163, 165, 171, 225, 227, 229–230, 235, 239–240, 244, 246, 299, 322 skin colour 223, 231–237, 245, 277, 294 Skuncke, Marie-Christine 28, 127, 250, 252, 287, 310–311, 313 slavery 19, 31, 234, 253, 273, 278–279, 283, 286–289, 291, 293, 296–297, 299, 303, 305–306, 308, 310–311, 313, 315–316, 319–320, 332 slaves 193, 227, 229, 231, 234–235, 241, 243–244, 256, 273, 276–277, 279, 281, 285–286, 288–296, 309–310, 312–313, 315–316, 320, 322–324, 333 smoking 85, 90, 295 social categorization 227, 235 social order 193–194, 230, 245, 265, 267, 293, 296 Sofia Magdalena 150–152 soldiers 35, 85, 209, 230–231, 239, 244, 284, 290, 326, 328 South Africa 304, 324 space 4, 18, 21, 33, 43, 64, 118, 145, 149, 154–155, 161, 173–174, 237, 244, 273, 275–277, 279, 281–282, 284, 286, 293, 295–297, 302, 313, 315, 331–332 Spain 34, 85, 206, 216, 218–220 spatial turn 13, 301 Stagnell, Johan 251, 253, 255, 264 Stanley, John 100–101 Steele, Richard 310 stenography 54 Stiernhielm, Georg 45

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Stockholm 1, 26, 28, 30, 33–34, 36–37, 52, 62, 73, 81, 85–86, 90, 125–129, 133–136, 142, 145, 147–150, 153, 158–159, 161, 163, 167–168, 180, 188–189, 203, 232, 258, 276, 285, 288, 292, 301, 307, 309–310, 312–313, 317, 319, 321–322, 324, 328–329 stoic tradition 16–18, 307 Stralsund 276, 285 Stridsberg, Magnus 79, 82–83 Strutt, Joseph 158 Sturm und Drang 299, 318 Sturm, Johann Christopher 47 subjectivity 161, 258, 304 sugar 26, 85, 88, 90, 214, 218, 258, 273, 276 sumptuary law 163, 225–226, 251, 263, 267, 269–270 Sveaborg 325–330, 332–334 Svensson, Christina 309–312, 316 Swedenborg, Emanuel 49–50, 275, 332 Swedish East India Company 26, 217, 270, 303–306, 314 Swedish West India Company 278, 280, 292 Swift, Jonathan 44, 62 syllables 43, 54 symbols 39, 47, 50–51, 64, 245, 270, 310 syntax 52, 155, 158 tachygraphy 54 Tahiti 19, 313 taste 9, 29, 53–54, 58, 93, 95–97, 100, 103–109, 111–112, 117–118, 154, 162, 164 taxonomy 31, 58, 154, 281 tea 26, 85, 90, 139, 217, 255, 258, 265–266, 306 technology 2, 4, 14, 45, 69, 71, 92 textile trade 125–126, 134 theology 62, 178, 180, 197 Thirty Years War 33–34, 78, 85, 201, 205 Thucydides 14, 22 threshing 71, 78–84, 92 Thunberg, Daniel, af 328 Thunborg, Sven, af 284–285, 290 Titus 322 tobacco 29, 84–92, 126, 273, 333 tolerance 30, 175, 178, 184–185, 187–191, 199, 250, 278, 310, 314

trade 12, 14, 17, 19, 25–26, 30, 35–37, 48, 69–71, 86, 96, 109–111, 123–142, 155, 163–164, 167, 173–174, 180, 204, 207–219, 221, 247, 249–251, 258, 273, 275–280, 283–285, 287–288, 290–291, 294, 303–304, 306, 311, 319 Tragédie lyrique 98, 109 Trolle, Georg Johan Henrik, af 286 Trozelius, Claes Blechert 71–72, 81–83 Turin 98–99 tyrant 255–256, 270, 303, 315, 319–320, 322 universality 46, 52 universe 41–44, 47–48, 51, 62, 71, 301, 323, 332 university 4, 45, 85, 95–96, 109, 127–128, 210, 212, 303–305, 309, 325 Uppland 1, 82, 88, 95 Uppsala 34, 35, 45, 71–72, 85–87, 95–96, 109, 127–128, 178, 241, 325 Urquhart, Thomas 48 utilitarianism 58, 67,127, 165, 182, 187 Utopia 43–44, 48, 151, 275, 311, 313 vanity 109, 197, 252–254, 257, 267 venus 171, 312 verb 43, 53 Versailles 34, 109 Vinci, Leonardo 99 virtue 20, 54–55, 58, 69, 86, 167, 175, 183, 193, 195, 197, 267–269, 299, 308, 311–312, 317, 320, 322–323 Vologese 101 Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 34, 14–17, 22, 25, 98, 104, 106, 118, 150, 175, 199, 308, 314 vowels 52–54, 59, 62 Vries, Jan, de 910, 21, 125, 131, 228, 244, 249 Wadström, Carl Bernhard 275, 288 Wallerius, Anna Lisa 303 Wallis, John 45, 48 Wallonia 12, 4, 35 War of American Independence 204, 221 Wargentin, Per Wilhelm 73, 98 Wasa ship 85

Index Washington, George 306–307, 322 Watteau, Jean-Antoine 3, 11 West Indies 20, 85, 210, 214–216, 218, 275, 277, 279, 281, 286–289, 293, 311 Westerman, Johan (see Liljencrantz) Wharton, Robert 108 wife 128¸231, 234, 240, 254–258, 262, 264–266, 272, 284–285, 303, 322–323 Wilkins, John 44, 48–49, 55 wine 85 Withers, Charles 18, 21, 302, 307–308, 313, 315

355

Wolff, Christian von 47 Word, the 39, 50 worker 2, 4, 9, 79, 87, 118, 123–124, 131–132, 135–139, 142, 191, 193, 277, 291, 293–294 Yttersta Domen 319–321 Zanetti, Francesco 111 zephyr 312 Zetherström, Johan Niclas 256, 261