emained mutually on terms of
perfect equality. They were united only through the king, who was
the only center for the government of the union. No province had
constitutionally more importance than the rest, no supremacy by one
over the other existed. On this historic basis the Swedish realm was
built, and rested firmly until the commencement of the Middle Ages. In
the Old Swedish state-organism the various parts thus possessed a high
degree of individualized and pulsating life; the empire as a whole was
also powerful, although the royal dignity was its only institution.
The king was the outward tie which bound the provinces together;
besides him there was no power of state which embraced the whole
realm. The affairs of state were decided upon by the king alone, as
regard to war, or he had to gather the opinion of the Thing in each
province, as any imperial representation did not exist and was
entirely unknown, both in the modern sense and in the form of one
provincial, or sectional, assembly deciding for all the others. In
society there existed no classes. It was a democracy of free men, the
slaves and free men enjoying no rights. The first centuries of the
Middle Ages were one continued process of regeneration, the Swedish
people being carried into the European circle of cultural development
and made a communicant of Christianity. With the commencement of the
thirteenth century, Sweden comes out of this process as a medieval
state, in aspect entirely different to her past. The democratic
equality among free men has turned into an aristocracy, with
aristocratic institutions, the hereditary kingdom into an elective
kingdom, while the provincial particularism and independence have
given way to the constitution of a centralized, monopolistic state. No
changes could be more fundamental.

The old provincial laws of Sweden are a great and important
inheritance which this period has accumulated from heathen times. The
laws were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but
they bear every evidence of high antiquity. Many strophes are found in
them of the same meter as those on the tombstones of the Viking Age
and those in which the songs of the Edda are chiefly written. In other
instances the texts consist of alliterative prose, which proves its
earlier metrical form. The expressions have, in places, remained
heathen, although used by Christians, who are ignorant of their true
meaning, as, for instance, in the