241 In the rest of Chapter 6 some possible explanations are discussed as to the development from an undefined “descent right” to individualized ownership. It seems to indicate that in all probability during the 17th century there already existed an important market for agricultural produce and that this could have led to land, too, was considered a commodity. The Royal Council, for example, stated in 1642 that land in common with other commodities should be sold at the highest price. Actually the nobility, the politically dominant estate, must have had an ambivalent attitude. On the one hand they wished to keep the land within the estate through bördsrätt and through the patrilinear development by, for example, founding entailed estates. On the other hand they wished to be able to sell land at the highest possible price. In the House of the Nobility in 1668 it was said that it was better for a nobleman to sell one farmat the market price than three according to valuation. Certainly Sweden’s period as a dominant power during the 17th century placed great economic strain on the vast majority of the nobility and in the long run factors of this kind decided the matter. 7. Privileges or public safety: the discussion of the nobility’s sole right to free land Three types of land existed in Sweden since the Middle Ages, Crown lands (krono) which were owned by the Crown and where the peasants paid rent to the Crown, freeholders’ land {skatte) which m some way (this was discussed a great deal) was owned by freeholding peasants who paid taxes to the Crown and free land (frälse) which was free fromtaxes to the Crown and for the most part was owned by noblemen but cultivated by peasants who paid rent to the noblemen. From the end of the 17th century a third of all land in Sweden was free land. In the 1719 and 1723 privileges for the nobility it was for the first time clearly defined that only noblemen were allowed to own free land (one became a nobleman either by inheriting the title or being appointed so by the king). The nobility’s sole right to free land was abolished in two stages, in 1789 for the scattered farms outside the manors and in 1810 for the manors themselves. In Swedish historiography the monopoly of land free from tax has usually been seen as a great privilege for the nobility and the conflicts between the estates in Parliament were borne in mind. The events of 1789 and 1810 have been seen as victories for the common estates. In this Chapter, however, attention is paid to the discussions within the nobility where certain groups, who became stronger with time, regarded the monopoly of free land as a burden. The starting point is the paradox that at the same time that the nobility in 1720 limited bördsrätt and abolished valuation on the redemption of land and allowed the market price to prevail they fought to hinder the commoners from buying free 16
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