1) The document discusses the city of Jönköping, Sweden and its role as a military and administrative center in the 17th century. 2) Jönköping was established to guard Sweden's southern border and serve as a supply base and manufacturing center for the army. 3) However, the ambitious plans to modernize Jönköping's fortifications and develop its industries faced shortcomings, and many projects were left unfinished due to lack of resources and changing political priorities.

1. Far Behind the Front
The Ambitions and Shortcomings of a Military State in the 17th century
EAA – Plzen 2013
Claes B Pettersson

2. The Emergence of a Major Power
• The Scandinavian Union of the late Middle Ages became impossible to maintain
• In its place – two nation-states, competing for control of the region
The Dissolution of
the Kalmar Union
(1397 – 1523)
The Nordic Seven
Years War
(1563 – 1570)
The Kalmar War
(1611-1613)
The Baltic trade
The copper mine at
Falun
The siege of Elfsborg in 1563

3. Guarding the Southern Border
Scandinavia in 1701
The City Fortresses of Southern
Sweden in the early 17th century:
• Gothenburg (founded in 1621)
• Jönköping (re-established in 1613)
• Kalmar (re-built in 1613 / new site 1647)
Jönköping :
• Supply base with stores for the army
• Centre for strategic manufacture
(arms & cloth)
• Important junction (land & water)
• Administrative centre for the region

4. Friary
Royal
Castle, Border
Fortress
The changing
fortunes of
Jönköping Castle
The Royal Castle 1550
The Border Fortress 1650
The Franciscan friary 1450

5. Visions for King & Council….
Draft for the new town 1617
...but hardly for the Good Citizens of Jönköping!
1620 - 1650
Modernization
Reform
Resources
Imported know-how
A basis for:
A military state
An efficient
administration
An aggressive
foreign policy

6. The Morass – no suitable place for a city…
Sedge
Peat cutting – for building material

7. Landfill and logistics in the early 17th century
Blue line – estimated shoreline before 1613
Violet – landfill made by the Crown, mainly in the manufacturing areas
Brown – landfill made by the burghers themselves during the first
decades
Massive timber foundations

8. Landfill – at the Royal Chartered Arms Factory Site
Systematic landfill by the Crown 1613 – 1623
Landfill by later private owners 1623 – 1800
Henbane

9. A Town for King and Council?
DEN FÖRSTA TRÄKYRKAN
The Court of Appeal – begun in 1639
The Swedish Coat of Arms
Western entrance to Kristine Church – begun
in 1649
Places of worship – two churches for a new town
Law and
administratio
n goes before
religious
needs…

10. The Royal Chartered Arms
Factory
1620
High tech – but based on local
traditions in arms manufacturing
Gunsmith’s workshop, built about 1640
Wheellock
Flintlock
Matchlock
Fixture

11. The German Meadow
Vantmakeriet 1620
• Large scale textile production
(cloth)
• For the army & the navy
• A manufacture based on highly
skilled workers, recruited in GermanyThree blocks – excavated
1982 to 2007

12. A visions that still remains – in the maps of 1657-58
The town as an unfinished project
• Lack of resources / other priorties
• A changing political situation
Cultivation instead of fortification

13. Flemings bastioner
1605
1617
The New Castle – a modern
artillery fortress of the highest
strategic importance
Drafts by Master Builder Hans Fleming – to be shown to King & Council
Re-built and modernized several times
between 1595 and 1645

14. Bastion Carolus
Excavated in 2012
Shoddy work… in
exposed positions!
Considerable differences in wall
thickness!
Broken sandstone ashlars
In danger of
collapse from
the
beginning...
Built on insufficient
foundations...
A hollow
wall, filled with
debris!

15. Mortar as a historic source material
Lime mortar from northern flank of
bastion Carolus – built in 1609-10
Lime mortar from makeshift wall –
built immediately before the siege of
1612

16. Propaganda versus Reality – The Jönköping metaphor
A town of great strategic value – the central, but weakest link in the chain of
defence!
• where the impressive city fortifications were never built
• where the castle was neither finished, nor ever fully prepared for battle
• where one of the two Royal Chartered Manufactures became a total failure
• where the local economy was closely linked to the aggressive foreign policy
• where the international element was of great importance during the 17th century