The Renaissance of the Goths in Sixteenth-Century Sweden.

This study of the brothers Johannes Magnus and Olaus Magnus, the last two Roman Catholic archbishops of Uppsala, credits them with a much more prominent role in Swedish history than has been conceded by traditional historiography, which points to the leaders of the Swedish Reformation, King Gustavus Vasa and the Lutheran preacher Olaus Petri, as the ones who set the country on the road to modernity. Johannesson's case rests not so much on what they did as archbishops (since they spent most of their careers in exile) as on their work as historians and geographers. Johannes Magnus's History of the Goths presents a case (partly based on historical fact, partly on legend and his own inventions) for identifying modern Swedes as descendants of the Gothic conquerors of ancient Rome. It also linked the entire recent past of northern Europe to these Gothic origins. Finally, it interpreted Swedish history in terms that glorified the bishops as the defenders of national integrity against tyrannical kings, unjust nobles, and foreign conquerors, especially the kings of Denmark. The Protestant king, Gustavus Vasa, attacked both the clerical politics and the anti-absolutist ideas put forward in the Gothic history. Yet he and his successors took over the archbishop's claims of Gothic ancestry, presenting themselves rather than the bishops as guardians of that heritage. The younger brother, Olaus Magnus, took a different approach, though his goals were much the same. His principal work, The History of the Nordic Peoples, interpreted Swedish identity in terms of its geographical setting, drawing from both ancient and medieval encyclopedic authors like Pliny and Vincent of Beauvais. Johannesson presents Johannes as a humanist who deliberately adopted humanistic rhetoric to shape his arguments. Olaus, on the other hand, expresses more fully the spirit of the common people and also applies the spirit of the Counter-Reformation in his proposals for action designed to end Vasa's tyranny and restore the Catholic faith and the leadership of the bishops.

There is considerable justification for Johannesson's challenge to the partisan myths that for centuries presented Vasa and his successors, together with the preachers who introduced the Reformation, as the sole creators of modern Sweden. Yet his own rather uncritical embrace of Johannes Magnus as the spokesman for a Swedish Renaissance raises the question whether a political ideal which would subject the kings to the tutelage of their nobility and especially of their bishops truly reflects the spirit of the Renaissance. Certainly no other major king of the sixteenth century was willing to accept such tutelage - not Henry VIII, not Francis I, not even their Catholic majesties Charles V and Philip II. Johannesson's interpretation arises from a significant methodological flaw. In pursuit of his justifiable desire to challenge the conventional history and to show the riches of the two brothers' historical writings, he finds it difficult to maintain a critical distance between himself and his subjects. One consequence is that long sections of the book merely summarize the contents of the brothers' writings. This is not wholly regrettable, since their works are very little known, even in Sweden. A second consequence is that although he notes the presence of old myths and self-serving new inventions in their histories, he adopts an apologetic tone that tries harder to condone than to evaluate their use of these invented elements. As a result, while the book performs a real service to scholarship by presenting an important but little-known episode in Swedish history, it is not so successful in explaining how Johannes and Olaus Magnus fit into the political, religious, and intellectual history of the Swedish people, who almost never make an appearance in this volume.