Theconsolidation of Sweden was an extended process during which loosely organized polities of the first millennium AD consolidated under the power of a common king. The age of the first kingdom of Swedes centered aroundLake Mälaren is unknown.[1] The first time that the ancient Swedes and the neighbouring Götar polity aroundLake Vättern are documented to have shared a ruler is with the election ofOlof Skötkonung about AD 1000.[2]
Scholars differ in defining early Sweden as either a country, state or kingdom. TheSwedish name of Sweden isSverige, which stems from an older form akin toSvea rike, "Country of the Swedes", which is still used poetically. It is found earliest in theBeowolf saga (Old English:Swēorīċe), recorded in theNowell Codex inOld English around 1000, but linguistically traced to the 9th or 8th century.
Based on the origins of the name of the kingdom as meaning (Kingdom of theSwedes), some historians have argued that Sweden was unified when the Swedes first solidified their control over the regions they were living in. The earliest date for this is based on a brief section in the Roman historianTacitus discussing theSuiones tribe.[3] This would imply that a Swedish kingdom would have existed in the first to second centuries AD. However, with the increased rigour ofhistorical method advanced in 20th century historical research, in Sweden as elsewhere, historians such asCurt Weibull and his brotherLauritz maintained that these perspectives have become obsolete. Modern historians noted that a millennium had passed between Tacitus and more in-depth and reliable documented accounts (or notices of contemporary events relating to Sweden by Frankish and German writers) of Swedish history. The work ofBirger Nerman (1925), who argued that Sweden held a senior rank among the existing European states at the time represents anationalist reaction to the academichistoriography, with the latter taking a critical or cautious view of the value of old layers of sources of history[4] especially if these documents and traditions are unsupported by any direct traces, any footprint of events and social or political conditions in the archaeological records, buildings, coinage etc. of the age in question.
The names Swedes andGeats are attested in theOld English poemsBeowulf (written down in the 11th century) andWidsith (from the 8th century) and building on olderlegendary andfolklore material collected in England.[5] In both poems, anOngentheow (corresponding toAngantyr in Icelandic sagas) is named as the King of the Swedes, and the Geats are mentioned as a separate people. These names of peoples living in present-day Sweden, the Anglo-Saxon references and now lost tales they were attached to must have travelled across theNorth Sea. The first time the two peoples are documented to have had a common ruler is during the reign ofOlof Skötkonung about AD 1000.[2]
Rather than the unification of tribes under one king, others maintain that the process of consolidation was gradual. Nineteenth-century scholars saw the unification as a result of a series of wars based on evidence from theNorse sagas. For example, according to theNorwegianHistoria Norwegiae and the Icelandic historianSnorri Sturlusson, a 7th-century king calledIngjald illråde burnt a number of subordinate kings to death inside his hall, thus abolishing thepetty kingdoms in the consolidation of Sweden.
According to Sverre Bagge, unification in Sweden centered on controlling the areas around the major lakes in Sweden.[6]
