Swedish Poetry - Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Christianization of Sweden was one of the main events in the country's history, and it naturally had an equally profound impact on literature.

The Gök runestone is a case in point of how the older literature dissolved. It uses the same imagery as the Ramsund carving, but a Christian cross has been added and the images are combined in a way that completely distorts the internal logic of events. Whatever the reason may have been, the Gök stone illustrates how the pagan heroic mythos was going towards its dissolution, during the introduction of Christianity.

Literature now looked to foreign texts to provide models. By 1200, Christianity was firmly established and a Medieval European culture appeared in Sweden. Only a selected few mastered the written language, but little was written down. Complete manuscripts are only found from the early 14th century, written in Latin. The earliest known complete books in the Swedish language are from the end of that century.

Most education was provided by the Catholic Church, and therefore the literature from this period is mainly of a theological or clerical nature. The majority of other literature written consists of law texts.