Terese Zachrisson
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In the midst of thick and wretched darkness
Enlightened orthodoxy and the heritage of the medieval Church

This chapter approaches the pre-Lutheran past from the vantage point of material culture in Swedish parish churches. To a considerable extent, the material remnants of the medieval Church were preserved by the mid-eighteenth century. By means of examination of visitation records as well as of topographical, antiquarian and historical works, the chapter demonstrates how the learned priesthood – as well as the local clergy who acted as informants for collectors – approached and reproached local traditions from the Catholic past. A general tendency is that the Lutheran definition of res indifferentes from the sixteenth century was replaced by a view assessing a danger for people of the present day, leaving the impression of an ‘Enlightened orthodoxy’ criticizing the heritage of the medieval Church.

Our honourable theologians have most happily averted the invocation of the saints, and to that end they have had their images removed, so that the ignorant need not be reminded of an old and harmful delusion; but the poor, that in these parts are somewhat more in obscuro and further removed from medicis, have persisted longer in their superstition and claimed, as of the Catholic fables, to have been helped in their needs and illnesses by St Olaf.1

The words above were penned by the most prominent representative of the Swedish Enlightenment, Carl Linnaeus, after he had visited the church of St Olaf in Scania in 1749. Linnaeus was far from alone in making distinct connections between the concept of Roman Catholicism and ignorance and superstition, as well as between the concept of Lutheranism and reason and clarity. While the Enlightenment movement in France in the circles of the philosophes often denounced the teachings of institutionalized religion, Swedish Enlightenment ideas were often firmly embedded in the theology of the national Lutheran Church. As opposed to Linnaeus, who was never ordained into the priesthood, many scholars of the eighteenth century were both scientists and scholars while also being men of the cloth. This combination frequently produced a fierce rejection of Roman Catholicism in general, and of the medieval Church in particular.2

The present chapter discusses how central themes of Enlightenment thought shaped the learned view of medieval Christianity in eighteenth-century Sweden, mainly in relation to its surviving physical traces. Two main types of sources will be used to this end: antiquarian, historical and topographical publications on the one hand and visitation records on the other. While the first category will provide insights into general modes of thought, the visitation records will show how the learned priesthood argued and acted in practice when confronted with the medieval heritage in the line of their day-to-day work. The authors behind the sources used in this essay were either academics or ecclesiastics, but in practice a majority combined these two fields of activity. Andreas Rhyzelius (1677–1761), for instance, whose works will feature in the following, published several extensive historical works while Bishop of Linköping. Rooted in Lutheran orthodoxy, he was critical of the more radical ideas of the Enlightenment; but he incorporated several of the ideals commonly associated with the movement in his rhetoric regarding knowledge and rationality.3 Some of the individuals whose texts will be featured were members of the local clergy who acted as informants for collectors such as Samuel Rogberg (1698–1760) and Sven Wilskman. In these cases, it is difficult to assess the extent to which the texts were edited and rephrased by the collectors themselves. In this particular context, however, this aspect is not of fundamental importance, since the wording is of interest regardless of whether they were penned word-by-word by a member of the lower clergy or summarized by collectors.

The light of the Reformation

Now, it was like a new world; darkness gave way and Evangelical light took its place. Human reason started to gaze upwards, once it had been freed from the shackles of superstition.4

In the topographical, antiquarian and historical works of the era, pre-Reformation religious life was depicted in gloomy colours and functioned as a stark contrast to the light and freedom of the Lutheran Church, as depicted in the passage quoted above, written in 1765 by economist Emanuel Ekman (1737–1801) in a description of the Province of Värmland. Likewise, in another topographical piece on the same province, Pastor Erik Fernow (1735–1791), writing in the 1770s, summarized ‘what thick and wretched darkness our ancestors have dwelled in.’5 A dichotomy of light and darkness was frequently used when the Lutheran Reformation was debated. In embracing key concepts of the Enlightenment vocabulary – reason, clarity, freedom and intellectual understanding – learned members of the Swedish priesthood assumed a distinctly anti-Catholic stance. Olof Broman (1676–1750), pastor, schoolmaster and author of Glysisvallur – an ethnographic, historical and topographical account of the Province of Hälsingland – depicted the Reformation in the following terms:

When this all-too-thick darkness [heathendom] with much effort came to be repelled from the sky of the Church, and small glimmers of light were lit by the brightness of Truth, it did not take long before the harmful fog and poisonous haze rose from the wide and deep Popish swamp and mire, that confused both brain and vision; so that the people here fared no better, nay worse, [than before], as was also the case elsewhere in Europe; until God in his great mercy awoke King Gustaf Eriksson I to – like Emperor Constantine – liberate and defend the congregation from devilish human beings and human-like devils.6

Roman Catholicism was associated with darkness, bondage, superstition and deceit. The general populace of pre-Reformation times was represented as naive, gullible and taken advantage of by scheming monks driven by greed and hunger for power.7 These attitudes were projected onto objects surviving from this era which were regarded as physical testimony to the corruptness of medieval Christendom. During the eighteenth century, a large part of the still-surviving medieval mural paintings disappeared when churches were rebuilt and whitewashed, and countless medieval sculptures and altarpieces were destroyed.

From res indifferentes to danger

The depiction of the medieval past as a world of darkness partly originated in the Reformation era, where an insistence on understanding and knowledge in opposition to incomprehension was a key feature of the reformers’ didactic discourse.8 The trope of cunning monks and priests deliberately misleading the common folk featured heavily in Reformation-era polemics on the British Isles, as did a general disdain for material expressions of faith and the cult of the saints.9 Though it did occur to some degree, this kind of language was less pronounced during the Swedish Reformation. In the Church Ordinance of 1571, Roman Catholic practices were renounced. But the ordinance also positioned itself against the Reformed churches, and in particular against the iconoclastic practices associated with them. Images, altars, vestments and liturgical vessels were all stated to be res indifferentes – objects that in themselves were neither harmful nor beneficial to religious practice.10 The emphasis on material objects as res indifferentes was more pronounced during the earlier years of the Reformation than later; but during the late sixteenth century, these aspects became more controversial owing to the re-Catholizing efforts of King John (Johan) III (r. 1569–1592).11

Seventeenth-century scholars and learned members of the clergy sometimes had a hesitant relationship with the material objects of the pre-Reformation church. This is well illustrated in the highly influential Ethica Christianæ, published between 1617 and 1621 by future archbishop Laurentius Paulinus Gothus (1565–1646). In this work, in a manner similar to that of the ordinance of 1571, Lutheran orthodoxy positioned itself not only against Roman Catholicism, but also against Calvinism and the Reformed churches. With regard to images, Gothus rhetorically asked what to make of images ‘that by the Papists are held in great veneration, but by the Calvinists are wholly rejected’, answering that, ‘Both parties are in error, the Papists in that they go too far in these matters and abuse images for worship, the Calvinists in that they denounce the matter too much and banish images from all of their churches’.12

From a European perspective, early modern Sweden had an unusually strict legislation regarding religious freedom, or rather the lack of it. Roman Catholicism had been outlawed as early as 1617, and Reformed Protestants only had a limited right to practise their religion. Even Pietism, a movement within Lutheranism itself, was repressed.13 The struggle to create an essentially mono-confessional cultural environment in all likelihood had an impact on Enlightenment-era clergy and scholars. The first part of the eighteenth century saw hardened attitudes towards all non-orthodox religious beliefs. The 1726 Conventicle Act made all religious gatherings beyond the framework provided by the national religion illegal, and the 1735 Act on Religion enabled pastors to actively seek out and report anyone harbouring irregular religious views.14 These edicts, and the inquests leading up to them, were primarily aimed at rooting out Pietism; but they illustrate an increasing concern with Lutheran orthodoxy and religious unity that seems to have had an impact on clerical views on all heterodox thoughts and actions.

Attitudes to the medieval heritage

The clergy of this era usually employed a distancing idiom when discussing medieval material culture, especially images of the saints; but the modes of marking this distance took several forms. First, objects could be criticized in a historical light, in which the author in question lamented the sorry state of medieval Christendom, often with more than a hint of sarcasm and ridicule. Secondly, they could also be rejected with an eye towards the future – in these cases, altars, shrines and images were regarded as the weights that kept the population down, preventing them from embracing rationality, freedom and a true relationship with God. A third mode of marking one’s distaste for these objects was that of silence and oblivion, in which the authors marked the total irrelevance of the objects by means of a – genuine or feigned – lack of understanding of them. These three approaches will be discussed in greater detail in the following section.15

Crafty monks and bloodied knees

In all discussions of the faults of the medieval Church, no group seem to have been more to blame than monks and friars. In his Glysisvallur, composed around 1720, Olof Broman (1676–1750) writes that during the early days of Christendom, the greed and craftiness of monks soon became so great that eventually the Benedictines became known as the ‘Benefictines’, whereas the Dominicans were called ‘Dæmonicans’, the Franciscans ‘Fraudciscans’ and the Carmelites ‘Carnalites’.16 This kind of abuse was repeated by Bishop Andreas Rhyzelius, also a historian, in his Monasteriologia Sviogothica from 1740.17

Though it sometimes occurred, it was much rarer for the secular clergy of the pre-Reformation era to be attacked in the same manner. One reason for this discrepancy might have been that the parish system was in many respects only slightly altered by the Reformation, and criticism levelled at the parish priests of the fourteenth century could spill over on to their eighteenth-century successors. As noted by Henrik Ågren, a denunciation of the priesthood of the Middle Ages could also function as a masked critique of the contemporary Lutheran Church.18 Criticizing monks will have been a much safer proceeding than directing open criticism at contemporary clergy, and monasticism provided Enlightenment-era scholars with an ideal outlet for any possible traces of the anti-clericalism that was so characteristic of the French Enlightenment. In eighteenth-century Britain, the term ‘priestcraft’ was often used in the same pejorative ways as ‘witchcraft’, and it could be applied not only to Catholic priests but to Protestant clergy as well.19 This rhetoric was mainly applied in a political context, and it would not have been relevant to works of the kind investigated in the present chapter.

According to Broman, cunning missionaries first made use of the pagans’ habit of worshipping wooden idols and converted them by introducing images that were made to ‘weep, speak and perform miracles’.20 The trope of the crafty monk using mechanics to fool the populace into believing a sculpture was miraculous appears frequently in other Enlightenment-era writings as well. Several sculptures in the church of Luleå in the northernmost part of the country were claimed by topographer Abraham Hülphers (1734–1798) to be such devices. An image of the Virgin had little cavities ‘between the eyes and the skull’, allowing the monks to bring about tears with the use of a damp sponge, while other sculptures had string devices enabling movement and alleged miracles.21 In a 1740s description of Tolånga parish church in Scania, its pastor claimed that a statue of the Virgin had been made to appear to weep. The head of the sculpture was hollow, and when water was poured into it, it would slowly drip from the eyes and down the cheeks of the statue.22 Historian and topographer Carl Fredric Broocman (1709–1761) published a topographical description of the Province of Östergötland in 1760, and when discussing the old Bridgettine abbey in Vadstena, he especially commented on the collection of surviving medieval sculptures, stating that

[a]mong these [sculptures] there is an image of St Bridget, remarkable in that through this image, which is so large and hollow that a human being may fit within it, the monks have often spoken to the congregation, in order to blind and deceive the simple crowds.23

When mentioning objects that were perceived to have been used in connection with punishment, authors often included detailed descriptions of the bodily torments that the medieval Church was imagined to have inflicted upon its members. This is evident as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, when church historian Petter Dijkman (1647–1717) described various humiliating punishments for sinners, such as being forced to beat oneself with rods and scourges and to eat among dogs and cats, as well as being shackled and even walled up alive.24 In his description of the Province of Dalarna, Abraham Hülphers discussed a former chapel in Grangärde parish which, in his view, resembled a diabolical maze. According to this description, several buildings had been erected on top of one another with narrow passages between them where sinners had been made to crawl, tormenting and forcing their bodies ‘all in accordance with the gravity of their sin’.25 A similar arrangement was claimed to have been in place underneath the church of Stora Tuna (near Borlänge in the Province of Dalecarlia/Dalarna), according to Dean Magnus Sahlstedt (1686–1752) in a topographical description published in 1743. Sinners had to crawl through a narrow passage that had been dug out beneath the altar, to their great ‘harm and shame’.26 At a place called ‘Taveltäkten’ in the parish of Tuna in the Province of Hälsingland, Olof Broman mentioned in his Glysisvallur a wayside cross. The cross had sharp rocks at its base, where

those who had merited punishment, or who wished to show their remorse, had to crawl around the cross on their bare knees across these sharp stones, until their skin was shed and the blood was flowing. This is the origin of the popular phrase … ‘go to Tuna and learn your manners!’27

Pre-Reformation objects as harmful influences

The small stave church of Skaga was a well-known votive church in the Province of Västergötland, and it was a continuous source of trouble for the diocesan chapter.28 According to the collections of cathedral dean and historian Sven Wilskman, all the ‘superstition’ and misconduct taking place there originally stemmed from a sculpture of the head of St John the Baptist, ‘planted there during the Popish darkness’, which the people had been tricked into believing was miraculous.29 Images of the saints often seem to have been viewed as potential instigators for superstition among the uneducated.

Linguistic scholar and bishop Daniel Juslenius (1676–1752) can be seen to have embodied the heightened hostility of his time against the medieval heritage of the Church. As Bishop of Skara, a position he held from 1746 up to his death in 1752, he continuously battled both popular ‘superstition’ and Pietism. The visitation acts from his episcopate reveal an aversion towards pre-Reformation artworks that bordered on the iconoclastic. At one point, during a visitation in Norra Ving in 1746, he ordered images of the Virgin Mary and some other saints to be smashed up before being buried in a deep pit because the images were being ‘misused for all manner of superstitions’.30 Ever-present in his criticism was the fear that these objects may mislead parishioners towards superstitious thoughts and actions. An artistic representation that he seems to have considered especially harmful was that of Mary as Queen of Heaven. In Norra Fågelås parish church, the bishop ordered the removal of two images of the crowned Virgin during the visitation of 1748. One of them stood on the main altarpiece; the other is likely to have been a depiction belonging to the still-preserved early fifteenth-century Marian shrine that is today housed at the Swedish Historical Museum, a shrine from which a sculpture of a standing Madonna has been removed.31 In Häggum parish church, the entire altarpiece was removed during a visitation in 1749, because of ‘the crown on Mary’s image on the altarpiece, which could have caused many opportunities for harm’.32 In the church of Gudhem, parishioners were apparently allowed to keep their image of the Virgin on condition that her crown and the words ora pro nobis were removed.33 The image of Mary was also to be removed in the parish church of Skölvene, as it displayed a ‘Popish delusion’ – a phrasing that reaffirms the alleged connection between Roman Catholicism and a lack of reason that was discussed above.34

An instance that is representative of the changed attitudes towards medieval images is the visitation record from Husaby parish church in 1747. On this occasion, the pastor of the parish was ordered by Bishop Juslenius to make sure that an image of Mary, which was placed on the northern wall, was removed in order to prevent superstition.35 In all likelihood, this command referred to the still-preserved standing Madonna originating from a late fourteenth-century altarpiece. The sculpture had, together with the images of a holy bishop and an apostle, been rearranged into a secondary altarpiece in 1671.36 By the mid-eighteenth century, objects that had been deemed worthy of renovation less than a century before were hence viewed as vessels of superstition.

Bishop Juslenius was also critical of depictions of the saints in two-dimensional form. In the parish of Jung, one of the chalices was engraved with the name of Mary. During his visitation in 1746, the bishop demanded that the letters be erased. Likewise, when visiting Sunnersberg the year before, he had decided that an embroidered text on a chasuble saying O Beate Paule, Ora Pro Nobis was to be removed.37

It is well known that the majority of medieval mural paintings in Swedish churches were whitewashed in the eighteenth century, rather than in the Reformation era. There were several motivational forces behind this destruction. The murals were at odds with the neo-classical aesthetics that came to dominate a large part of the eighteenth century. Even the post-Reformation wall-paintings in the wooden church of Stenberga, removed in 1778, were described as ‘old and useless’ in the collections of Samuel Rogberg, the judgement being uttered by the local pastor.38 An ambition to literally enlighten church space through enlarged windows often meant demolishing part of the walls, and in connection with such renovations it was not uncommon for the remaining walls to be whitewashed. But apart from being the objects of purely aesthetics-induced disdain, these murals were also perceived to be harmful because of their theological content. When visiting the church of Börstig in 1746, Juslenius took the opportunity to condemn both the church’s altarpiece and its murals:

His Eminence the Doctor and Bishop observed that the middle part of the sculpture work on the altarpiece in Börstig church should be removed as being idolatrous and popish, and that a crucifix or some other decoration should be put there instead. Also, the chancel roof should be lime-washed, in order to obliterate the saints of the Papists that are painted there and may be expected to cause vexation among some persons at some time.39

The particular language used in this case – that the saints are to be ‘obliterated’ (utplånade in Swedish) – highlights the same intense aversion that featured in the visitation record from Norra Ving, mentioned earlier in this section, where images were to be ‘smashed’ (sönderslås) and ‘buried’ (nedgrävas).

Feigned ignorance

On some occasions, eighteenth-century clergy distanced themselves from pre-Reformation objects with an air of feigned ignorance. In the famous church of Husaby between Lakes Vänern and Vättern in Sweden, a sculpture of St Elmo was mentioned in a dismissive tone by Rector Jonas Marchander as a ‘wooden image, with something like a papal cap on its head, standing with its feet in a cauldron, which is supposedly meant to be a depiction of some martyr’.40 Though it is certainly possible that Marchander could not identify St Elmo on the basis of the iconography of the image, this way of denying knowledge of the saints was also applied to depictions where the identity of the figure in question should have been apparent to the viewer. In Samuel Rogberg’s description of the churches of the Province of Småland, published in 1770 and based on reports from local clergy, an image of St Olaf in Dädesjö parish church was described as ‘an image of a man, which seems to show the likeness of a king with sceptre and apple in his hand, trampling a man lying underneath’.41 During the Middle Ages, St Olaf was immensely popular in Scandinavia, perhaps only rivalled by the Virgin Mary. He continued to be a figure of great importance in historical narratives as well as in folklore and popular piety throughout the early modern era, which makes it unlikely that the rector of Dädesjö would have been unable to recognize the motif. In 1749 the diocesan chapter of Åbo/Turku issued a call for the pastors of the diocese to report what historical monuments were to be found in their churches; in a response from the parish of Huittinen, the pastor stated that the church possessed ‘an image of a woman, with a child sitting on her knee’, stowed away in a tool-shed.42 That the pastor should have been unable to identify the image of the Virgin seems absurd. In denying the precise identity of an object, it was effectively disarmed of all its dangerous potential as a vestige of ‘popery’. Also, in the descriptions of these objects, the persons depicted were only referred to as a ‘man’ and a ‘woman’. Not only were the exact identities of these saints obscured, but so was their very status as saints.

An even more radical way of marking the lack of importance of these objects was by entirely omitting to mention them. The questionnaires that were sent out by topographers and antiquarians to the clergy of various dioceses usually included variants of the question of what ‘monuments’ were preserved in their churches. The questionnaire issued by Count Fredrik Adolf Ulric Cronstedt (1744–1829), Provincial Governor of Gävleborg, in 1790 included at least two opportunities for respondents to describe medieval ecclesiastical objects: ‘The church’s paintings, images, pulpit, altarpiece, organ, etc. – what are they like?’ and ‘What old monuments are there, such as copes, thuribles, etc.?’43 Despite these direct questions, Rector Johan Sjöström of Segersta parish failed to mention a fourteenth-century crucifix as well as a gilded fifteenth-century altarpiece depicting the Virgin, St Barbara and St Catherine, among others.44 In the report from Norrala parish in the Province of Hälsingland, the still-preserved sculptures of the Virgin and St Anne were not mentioned, and neither were the three crucifixes, the image of St Olaf or the early sixteenth-century altarpiece from Ilsbo.45 This failure to mention medieval artefacts was by no means unique to the Cronstedt questionnaire; it may be observed in the responses to several other such surveys, too, such as the questionnaire issued by Olof Sundholm (1752–1819) in the Diocese of Skara in the 1780s.

Side altars, reliquaries, thuribles and other objects

Most of the examples in the sections above have dealt with sculptures, and these were probably the most common and eye-catching manifestations of the medieval past in early modern church space. But eighteenth-century writers also occasionally discussed other kinds of objects.

Multiple altars in churches had been banned as early as 1562, with the exception of cathedrals and large town churches; but in practice, side altars remained in many churches throughout the seventeenth century and to some extent into the eighteenth.46 When discussing side altars in a historical context, Bishop Rhyzelius of Linköping (1677–1761) often lingered on their multitude and overabundance. Another matter that was frequently criticized was the stipends attached to the altars, by which a superfluity of idle ecclesiastics would enrich themselves. During a visitation in the parish of Vist in 1750, Rhyzelius made a historical note in the parish register: ‘The church was at that time enlarged, only for this reason, that there would be made room for more altars and images of the saints, to the greater seduction of the people.’47 In his 1753 work on the history of the Swedish dioceses, Episcoposcopiæ Sviogothicæ, he noted that the cathedral of Strängnäs had, before the Reformation, been ‘on almost every side piled up with altars, where countless requiems were held, bought with wills, testaments, gifts and donations, from which not only deans and canons, but a vast huddle of prebendaries, rectors, altar priests and others had their bountiful upkeep’.48 In a more practical setting, other problems with side altars were addressed when bishops and deans encountered them in situ in parish churches throughout the country. In his home parish of Od in Västergötland, Bishop Rhyzelius in 1754 described the removal of Our Lady’s altar in 1711 by stating that the altar had been ‘unnecessary, and serving superstition and harm’.49 Similarly, a women’s altar was to be torn down in Hov, also in Västergötland, in 1764, since it took up much-needed space, but also because it was ‘an old remnant of the Papacy, and as such all-together unnecessary’.50

If Bishop Rhyzelius had a clear opinion as to the side altars, his view on reliquaries seems to have been marked by some insecurity. This is evident from his notes on the Eriksberg reliquary, which is now kept in the Swedish Historical Museum. On the one hand, he could not deny the sheer beauty and artistic qualities of the shrine, stating that ‘its likeness could scarcely be found in the entire country’.51 On the other hand, however, he emphasized that the reliquary had been used for ‘unscrupulous fraud’ by the monks, and concluded his description with a prayer:

Eternal thanks be to God, who has delivered us from such deceivers, and brought us to the clear Evangelical light! May the same God keep us and our descendants therein until the end of time, for the sake of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen!!52

Medieval thuribles, altar bells and other metal objects were often preserved in eighteenth-century churches, usually tucked away in the sacristy as unused artefacts. While frequently mentioned in church descriptions of the era, they usually seem to have been regarded as purely historical objects; as such, there seems to have been little need to criticize them – though one of the rectors in the collections of Olof Sundholm stated that the church of Kölaby had a small thurible made of metal, which was ‘preserving the memory of the Catholic buffoonery’.53 Unlike images in painted or sculptured form, these do not seem to have presented a possible threat to orthodoxy and were therefore usually not described in the same hostile manner by topographers, collectors and clergy.

Enlightenment and the ‘end of superstition’?

Several authors drew clear parallels between the forces of Enlightenment and progress and the decline in ‘superstitious’ traditions among the peasantry. In the 1750s, in his description of the Province of Blekinge, schoolmaster and rector Christopher Cronholm (1711–1789) attributed the decline in visits to holy wells to the establishment of ‘proper’ mineral spas.54 Several of the pastors who contributed to the parish descriptions of Olof Sundholm from the 1780s onwards proudly declared that their parishioners had mostly abandoned their old, superstitious ways in favour of more enlightened modes of thought.55 This triumphant view is also apparent in the visitation records of the latter half of the century. In 1776, visiting the parish of Vilske-Kleva, Bishop Forssenius of Skara (1708–1788) – who had composed a thesis on St Helen of Skövde as early as 1734, in which he criticized the then-practised veneration of her holy well – stated that ‘the superstitions of former times … are altogether abandoned in this parish’.56

The language used by Enlightenment-era scholars and clerics in depicting the pre-Reformation church had its origins in Reformation-era polemics.57 That being the case, similar statements may be found in the works of the two great Swedish reformers, brothers Olaus (1493–1552) and Laurentius Petri (1499–1573). But the polemics of the reformers was considerably milder than that of their contemporaries in other parts of Europe, as well as that of their domestic Enlightenment-era successors. Anti-Catholicism alone cannot account for these sentiments; similar themes can be found in enlightened Catholicism as well. During this era, Catholic clergy too displayed an increased concern with ‘superstition’ and articulated scepticism towards ‘material’ aspects of faith, such as miraculous images, the veneration of relics and even the saying of the rosary. Just like their Protestant counterparts, they rooted their arguments in terms of both ‘rationality’ and morality.58

In comparison to the situation in most other parts of Protestant Europe, pre-Reformation ecclesiastical objects were preserved to an unprecedented degree in Scandinavia. When English ambassador Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605–1675) visited Uppsala Cathedral in 1654, he found it so full of images and crucifixes that the church was ‘little different therein from the Popish churches’.59 Although hostility towards religious images and other pre-Reformation church furnishings could be found among individual seventeenth-century clergymen, there seems to have been a general level of acceptance – and even embracing of – the medieval heritage.60 This situation changed during the eighteenth century. The latter half of that century saw the beginning of the process during which countless medieval churches were demolished in order to make way for the white neo-classical buildings that may still be seen scattered across the Swedish countryside. The reasons behind this development were partly practical; the Romanesque churches were becoming too small for a growing population, and side altars, rood-screens and sculptures took up space that could be put to better uses. But the ideological engine behind this development was that of enlightened orthodoxy. At a first glance, religious orthodoxy and Enlightenment ideals may seem a most peculiar pairing; but the two combined created a milieu that was to change the structure of the physical religious landscape for a long time to come.

In the response to Count Cronstedt’s questionnaire from the parish of Gnarp, its rector supplied a detailed description of the completion of the new church building in 1785, on top of the foundations of the ‘narrow and defective’ thirteenth-century church. The account of the neo-classical whitewashed building oozes with pride. The church was ‘one of the finest in the entire country’, and when light from two of the ten new large windows hit the altarpiece – consisting of a bare shrouded cross with an allegorical figure – it was a truly beautiful sight.61

1 ‘Efter Catholiska tiden hafwa wåra hederwärda Theologi lyckeligen afbögt Helgonens åkallande, och til den ändan afskaffat deras bilder, at de enfaldige ej af dem måtte påminnas om en gammal och skadelig inbillning; men det fattiga folket, som här ligger, liksom något mer in obscuro, och längre skildt ifrån Medicis, har trägnare hållit uti med sin widskeppelse, och förment sig, efter Catholiske dikterne, af St. Olof kunna få någon hjelp i sin nöd och sjukdom’; Carl Linnaeus, Carl Linnæi Skånska resa, på höga öfwerhetens befallning förrättad år 1749: Med rön och anmärkningar uti oeconomien, naturalier, antiquiteter, seder, lefnadssätt. Med tilhörige figurer. Med kongl. Maj:ts allernådigste privilegio (Stockholm: Lars Salvius, 1751), p. 155. All translations mine.
3 Oxell, ‘Andreas O. Rhyzelius’, in Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/artikel/6655 [accessed 30 September 2020].
4 ‘Här blef nu lika som en ny wärld; mörkret måste wika och det ewangeliska ljuset intog des ställe. Det menniskliga förnuftet började se up, sedan det blifwit löst från widskepelsens bojor, under hwilka det hade legat fängsladt’; Emanuel S. Ekman, Wärmeland i Sitt Ämne Och i Sin Upodling, Första Delen Beskrifwit Af Emanuel S. Ekman (Uppsala: Kongl. Acad. Tryckeriet, 1765), p. 192.
6 ‘När tå thetta alt för tiocka mörkret med mycken mödo kom at fördrifwas på kyrkohimelen, och små liusa strimor uplysa af Saningens lius, warade intet länge för än then skadeliga töcknen och förgiftiga dimban upsteg utur wida och diupa Påfwiska träsket och myran, som förwillade både hiärnan och synen; så at folket här intet bätre, utan snarare wärre råkade ut, såsom på andra orter i Europa; til thes Gud af sin stora barmhärtighet upwäckte Konung Gudstaf Eriksson I:ste, at lika som Keyser Constantinus Magnus, frja och förswara Församlingen ifrån diefwulska Meniskor och meniskliga diäflar’; Olof Johansson Broman, Glysisvallur: och övriga skrifter rörande Helsingland D. 2 (Uppsala: Gestrike-Helsinge nation, 1912–1953), p. 50.
7 Marie Lennersand and Linda Oja, ‘Responses to witchcraft in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sweden’, in Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies (eds), Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 61–80 (p. 69).
9 Helen L. Parish, Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 52–60, 74–82.
10 Laurentius Petri, ‘Then swenska kyrkeordningen: Lärer all ting ährligha och skickeliga tilgå’, in Kyrko-ordningar och förslag dertill före 1686: Första Afdelningen (Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt, 1872), pp. 3–180 (pp. 3–19, 98–104).
11 Martin Berntson, Kättarland: En bok om reformationen i Sverige (Skellefteå: Artos, 2017), pp. 209–11.
12 ‘Hwad skal Man halla vtaff Beleten, huilka hos Papisterna ära i stor Wyrdning, Men aff the Calwinister warda aldeles förkastade? Begge Parterna fara wille: Papisterna i thet the Klijffua här medh alt för högt, och missbruka beleten til Gudstienst. Calvinisterna i så motto, at the saken mycket förringa och Beleten vthaff alla theras Kyrkior vthmönstra och förkasta’; Laurentius Paulinus Gothus, Ethica Christianæ pars prima, de ratione bene vivendi. Thet är: Catechismj förste deel, om Gudz lagh (Stockholm: Christoffer Reusner, 1617), pp. 72–3.
14 ‘Kongl. Maj:tz förnyade Placat och Förbud, angånde the oloflige Sammankomster, hwilka vti enskylte Hus til en särskild och enkannerlig Gudstienst förrättande anställas; Samt theras straff, som ther med beträdas. Stockholm i Råd-Cammaren then 12 Januarii Åhr 1726’, in Anders Anton von Stiernman (ed.), Samling Vtaf åtskillga, tid efter annan, vtkomna Kongliga Stadgar, Bref och Förårdningar Angående Religion Giord vppå Hans Kongl. Maj:ts Nådigaste Befallning (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1744), pp. 200–7; ‘Kongl. Maj:ts Rådige Stadga och Påbud, til Hämmande af hwarjehanda willfarelser, och theras vtspridande, emot then rena Evangeliska Läran. Gifwit Stockholm i Råd-Cammaren then 20. Martii 1735’, in Anders Anton von Stiernman (ed.), Samling Vtaf åtskillga, tid efter annan, vtkomna Kongliga Stadgar, Bref och Förårdningar Angående Religion Giord vppå Hans Kongl. Maj:ts Nådigaste Befallning (Stockholm: Kongl. Tryckeriet, 1744), pp. 225–37.
15 These three modes of distancing discourse invite comparison with the four strategies for taming the medieval heritage in Denmark as identified by Wangsgaard Jürgensen in this volume.
16 ‘Munkarne hafwa warit kiäcke TaskSpelare och öfwat sitt hocus pochus; alt på förtjänst och at richta pungen; ju längre ju mera, så att theßa Munkar af S. Bengts Orden, eller Benedictiner, blefwo nämde Benefictiner; lika som the Dominicaner, Dæmonicaner; Carmeliter, Carnaliter; Franciscaner, Fraudiscaner; o. s. w. Thet af Krönikorna allom kunigt är; hwilket war mächta stort hinder til rena läran och Christendomen’; Broman, Glysisvallur, p. 86.
18 See Ågren, Erik den helige, p. 264.
19 James A. T. Lancaster and Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, ‘Priestcraft: anatomizing the anti-clericalism of early modern Europe’, Intellectual History Review, 28:1 (2018), 7–22 (10).
20 Broman, Glysisvallur, p. 27.
21 Abraham Abrahamsson Hülphers, Samlingar til en beskrifning öfwer Norrland: Femte samlingen om Westerbotten (Västerås: Joh. L. Horrn, 1789).
22 Mattias Karlsson (ed.), Sockenbeskrivningar från Färs härad 1746–1747, utgivna med inledning och kommentarer av Mattias Karlsson (Lund: Kungl. humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, 2009), p. 38.
23 ‘ibland hwilka är S:t Britas Bild, theraf märkwerdig, at Munkarna genom thetta belätet, som är stort och utholkadt, at en menniskia kan rymas theruti, ofta talat til menigheten, at thermed förblinda och bedraga then enfaldiga hopen’; Carl Fredric Broocman, Beskrifning öfwer the i Öster-Götland befintelige städer, slott, sokne-kyrkor, soknar, säterier, öfwer-officers-boställen, jernbruk och prestegårdar, med mera (Norrköping: Johan Edman, 1760), p. 170.
25 Abraham Abrahamsson Hülphers, Dagbok Öfwer en resa igenom de under Stora Kopparbergs Höftingedöme lydande Lähn och Dalarne år 1757 (Västerås: Joh. Laur. Horrn, 1762), p. 618.
27 ‘De som woro skyllige til något straff, eller skulle wisa boot och bättring, måste på bar knäen, krypa så länge kring korset, öfwer theßa hwaßa klappur-stenar, at huden afnöttes och blodet utran; hwar utaf thet ordspråket är kommit: Gack til Tuna, kryp till kry, och Lär weta huut; eller som thet nu kortare säjes: Gå til Tuna, och Lära weta huut’: Broman, Glysisvallur, p. 243.
28 A votive church (Offerkyrka in Swedish, Lovekirke in Norwegian) was a church building that was considered especially holy, to which those in hope of healing and other divine interventions travelled or sent offerings. This tradition is well attested throughout the early modern era in Scandinavia. See Monica Weikert, I sjukdom och nöd: Offerkyrkoseden i Sverige från 1600-tal till 1800-tal (Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, 2004), pp. 4–8; Henning Laugerud, Reformasjon uten folk: Det katolske Norge i før- og etterreformatorisk tid (Oslo: St Olavs, 2018), pp. 268–83. For two Danish examples of this phenomenon, see Wangsgaard Jürgensen’s section on the Krogstrup and Stora Heddinge parish churches in this volume.
29 ‘Har af urminnes tider warit ett offer Capell, hwilken widskepelse, som ei ännu kunnat utrotas, är ifrån det Påfwiska mörkret ditplantad, då itt hufwud af träd, bildat efter S. Johanni Baptistas hufwud, är ditsatt, och folket inbillat att det skulle hafwa en miraculös werkan til mongas hiälp’; Skara, Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek, Sven Wilskmans samling [collection], De Singulis in Diocesi Scarensi Parochiis I: 613.
30 Riksarkivet, Gothenburg (RG), Norra Vings kyrkoarkiv [parish archive], KI:1, visitation record of 1746.
31 RG, Norra Fågelås kyrkoarkiv, N:1, visitation record of 1748.
32 RG, Häggums kyrkoarkiv, C:1, visitation record of 1749.
33 RG, Gudhems kyrkoarkiv, C:1, visitation record of 1749.
34 ‘J. Mariae bild på Altaretaflan skal med första borttagas, aldenstund den samma utwisar den Påfwiske wilfarelsen, och kan altså mycken förargelse förorsaka’; RG, Skölvene kyrkoarkiv, C:1, visitation record of 1748.
35 RG, Husaby kyrkoarkiv, N:2, visitation record of 1747.
37 RG, Jungs kyrkoarkiv, LI:1, visitation record of 1746; RG, Sunnersberg KI:1, visitation record of 1745.
39 ‘Påminte H. Herr Doctorn och Biskopen, at det medlerste Bildthuggare wärket på AltarTaflan i Börstigs kyrka bör borttagas såsom afgudiskt och påfwiskt, och ett Crucifix eller någon annan Zirat sättias i stellet. Äfwen bör Taket fram i Choret öfwerstrykas med lim, at utplåna de Påfwiskas helgon, som der stå målade och torde wid tilfälle lända någon til förargelse’; RG, Börstigs kyrkoarkiv, N:1, visitation record of 1746.
40 ‘Neder i Kyrkan synes ock en hvit Bild af Trä med likasom en Påfvemösa på hufvudet, stående med föttren i en gryta, som förmenas vara en afbild af någon Martyr’; Skara, Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek, Olof Sundholms samling, 75 Husaby.
41 ‘Likaledes finnes en mans-bild, som tyckes föreställa en Konung med spira och äple i handen, trampande på en underliggande man’; Rogberg, Historisk beskrifning om Småland i gemen, p. 284.
42 Anders Anton von Stiernman, Presterskapets redogörelser om forntida minnesmärken i Finlands kyrkor (Helsinki: Reinold Hausen, 1882), p. 200.
43 ‘Kyrkans målningar, bilder, Prädikstol, Alltartafla, Orgvärk, m. m. hurudana? Hvilka ållderdoms lemningar, såsom Chor-Kåpor, rökelse-kar, m. m. Där förvaras?’; Nils-Arvid Bringéus (ed.), Sockenbeskrivningar från Hälsingland 1790–1791, tillkomna på anmodan av landshövdingen F. A. U. Cronstedt, med efterskrift och register utgivna av Nils-Arvid Bringéus (Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska bokhandeln, 1961), p. 7.
44 Bringéus, Sockenbeskrivningar från Hälsingland, p. 44.
45 Bringéus, Sockenbeskrivningar från Hälsingland, pp. 44, 155–6, 226. Medeltidens bildvärld: 900901S3, 900901S2, 900901S1, 900901A2, 900901A1, 900924S8, 900925S10, 900927S4 and 930812A1.
47 ‘Kyrkian är then tiden vtbyggd på längden endast til then ändan, at thervti skulle blifwa rum för flere altare och helgona-beläten, til menighetens större förförelse’; Riksarkivet, Vadstena, Vists kyrkoarkiv, C:3, church description from 1750.
48 ‘Hon war ock nästan å alla sidor vpfyld med altare, therwid oräkneliga Siäla-meßor blefwo hållna, som warit köpte med testamenten, gåfwor och Siälagifter, af whilka, vtom Domherrerna och Kanikerna, en weldig hop Præbendater, Vicarier, Altaristæ och andre slike hade sin rikeliga nödtorft’; Andreas Olavi Rhyzelius, Episcoposcopiæ Sviogothicæ, Eller En SweaGöthisk Sticht- och Biskops-Chrönika, Om alla Swea- och GöthaRikets Sticht och Biskopar, ifrå början, in til närwarande tid; Bestående af twå Delar. Med några anmerkningar Och fullkomligt Register (Linköping: Gabriel Biörckegren, 1752), p. 205.
49 RG, Ods kyrkoarkiv, C:1, church description from 1754.
50 ‘som tyckes wara en gammal öfwerlefwa af Påfwedömet, och således aldeles onödig’; Carl-Martin Bergstrand, Kulturbilder från 1700-talets Västergötland, andra delen (Gothenburg: N. J. Gumperts bokhandel, 1934), p. 179. Many medieval altars of Our Lady were retained in post-Reformation churches under the names of ‘women’s altars’, ‘churching altars’ or ‘cake altars’, and used in churching rituals during the seventeenth century; see Zachrisson, Mellan fromhet och vidskepelse, pp. 154–5.
51 ‘På thet wälvtzirade och med vtarbetad mässing öfwertäckta helgedoma-kar, som ännu finnes wti Eriksbergs Kyrkio, och ellierst näpeligen hafwer sin lika i hela landet’; RG, Eriksbergs kyrkoarkiv, C:1, church description from 1720.
52 ‘Gudi ware ewig tack, som oss ifrå sådana bedragare förlossat och fördt oss til thet klara Ewangeliska liuset! Samma nådige Gud bibehålle oss och wåra efterkommande ther wid in til wår och werldens ända, för wår Herras Jesu Christi skul. Amen!!’; RG, Eriksbergs kyrkoarkiv, C:1, church description from 1720.
53 ‘Intet märkvärdigt finnes der, utom et litet Rökelse Kar af malm, som förvarar minnet af Catholska Gykleriet’; Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek, Olof Sundholms samling: 132 Åsarp.
54 Christopher Cronholm, Blekings beskrivning författad av Christopher Cronholm år c:a 1750–1757 (Malmö: Blekingia, 1976), pp. 90–1.
55 Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek, Olof Sundholms samling: 85 Larv; 81 Källby; 83 Kinne-Kleva.
56 ‘Förra tiders widskeppelser, samt andra mißbruk och oseder, såsom skjutande om Påskafton och wid Bröllop m. m. äro här i församlingen aldeles aflagde’; RG, Vilske-Kleva kyrkoarkiv, KI:3, visitation record of 1776. Anders Forssenius, Specimen historicum de Schedvia Westergothiæ urbe, antiqua S. Helenæ sede (Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1734), pp. 30–1.
57 S. J. Barnett, Idol Temples and Crafty Priests: The Origins of Enlightenment Anticlericalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), pp. 123–4.
58 Ulrich L. Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 125–6, 156–58.
59 Bulstrode Whitelocke, Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, ed. C. Morton, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1855), II, p. 232.
60 Inga Lena Ångström, ‘Avdammad madonna åter på tronen – Maria i 1600-talets kyrkorum’, in Sven-Erik Brodd and Alf Härdelin (eds), Maria i Sverige under tusen år: Föredrag vid symposiet i Vadstena 6–10 oktober 1994, Bok 2: Marias tillbakaträngade (Skellefteå: Artos, 1996), pp. 647–76 (pp. 647, 653).
61 Bringéus, Sockenbeskrivningar från Hälsingland 1790–1791, pp. 248–50.

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Gothenburg

Riksarkivet, Gothenburg (RG)

Börstigs kyrkoarkiv [parish archive], N:1

Eriksbergs kyrkoarkiv, C:1

Husaby kyrkoarkiv, N:2

Häggums kyrkoarkiv, C:1

Gudhems kyrkoarkiv, C:1

Jungs kyrkoarkiv, LI:1

Norra Fågelås, N:1

Norra Vings kyrkoarkiv, KI:1

Ods kyrkoarkiv, C:1

Skölvene kyrkoarkiv, C:1

Sunnersbergs kyrkoarkiv, KI:1

Vilske-Kleva kyrkoarkiv, KI:3

Skara, Sweden

Skara stifts- och landsbibliotek

Olof Sundholms samling [collection], 75 Husaby

Olof Sundholms samling, 81 Källby

Olof Sundholms samling, 83 Kinne-Kleva

Olof Sundholms samling, 85 Larv

Olof Sundholms samling, 132 Åsarp

Sven Wilskmans samling, De Singulis in Diocesi Scarensi Parochiis 1

Vadstena, Sweden

Riksarkivet, Vadstena

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———, Episcoposcopiæ Sviogothicæ, Eller En SweaGöthisk Sticht- och Biskops-Chrönika, Om alla Swea- och GöthaRikets Sticht och Biskopar, ifrå början, in til närwarande tid; Bestående af twå Delar. Med några anmerkningar Och fullkomligt Register (Linköping: Gabriel Biörckegren, 1752).

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Sahlstedt, Magnus, Stora Tuna i Dahlom och Bergom minnes-döme. Thet är: vtförlig beskrifning och vnderrettelse om then ort och christeliga församling, som har namn af Stora Tuna, och är belägen i Öster-Dahls bergslagen (Falun: Falu nya boktryckeri, 1955).

Stiernman, Anders Anton von, Presterskapets redogörelser om forntida minnesmärken i Finlands kyrkor (Helsinki: Reinold Hausen, 1882).

Svenska riksdagsakter jämte andra handlingar som höra till statsförfattningens historia under tidehvarfvet 1521–1718, Andra delen, 1, 1561–1592 (Stockholm: Riksarkivet, 1899).

Weikert, Monica, I sjukdom och nöd: Offerkyrkoseden i Sverige från 1600-tal till 1800-tal (Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, 2004).

Whitelocke, Bulstrode, Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, ed. C. Morton, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1855), II.

Zachrisson, Terese, Mellan fromhet och vidskepelse: Materialitet och religiositet i det efterreformatoriska Sverige (Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, Department of Historical Studies, 2017).

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