1.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead
2.
Castle
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A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. Usage of the term has varied over time and has applied to structures as diverse as hill forts. Over the approximately 900 years that castles were built, they took on a great many forms with different features, although some, such as curtain walls. A European innovation, castles originated in the 9th and 10th centuries, after the fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in its territory being divided among individual lords and princes. Although their military origins are often emphasised in castle studies, the structures served as centres of administration. Many castles were built from earth and timber, but had their defences replaced later by stone. Early castles often exploited natural defences, lacking features such as towers and arrowslits, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, a scientific approach to castle defence emerged. This led to the proliferation of towers, with an emphasis on flanking fire, many new castles were polygonal or relied on concentric defence – several stages of defence within each other that could all function at the same time to maximise the castles firepower. These changes in defence have been attributed to a mixture of castle technology from the Crusades, such as concentric fortification, not all the elements of castle architecture were military in nature, so that devices such as moats evolved from their original purpose of defence into symbols of power. Some grand castles had long winding approaches intended to impress and dominate their landscape, while castles continued to be built well into the 16th century, new techniques to deal with improved cannon fire made them uncomfortable and undesirable places to live. As a result, true castles went into decline and were replaced by artillery forts with no role in civil administration, and country houses that were indefensible. From the 18th century onwards, there was a renewed interest in castles with the construction of castles, part of a romantic revival of Gothic architecture. The word castle is derived from the Latin word castellum, which is a diminutive of the word castrum, meaning fortified place. The Old English castel, Old French castel or chastel, French château, Spanish castillo, Italian castello, the word castle was introduced into English shortly before the Norman Conquest to denote this type of building, which was then new to England. In its simplest terms, the definition of a castle accepted amongst academics is a fortified residence. Feudalism was the link between a lord and his vassal where, in return for service and the expectation of loyalty. Castles served a range of purposes, the most important of which were military, administrative, as well as defensive structures, castles were also offensive tools which could be used as a base of operations in enemy territory
3.
Kalmar
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Kalmar is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 36,392 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality and it is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of 236,399 inhabitants. From the thirteenth to the centuries, Kalmar was one of Swedens most important cities. Between 1602 and 1913 it was the see of Kalmar Diocese, with a bishop. It became a city, with the Kalmar Castle as the center. After the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, Kalmars importance diminished, the city is home to parts of Linnaeus University. Kalmar is adjacent to the route to the island of Öland over the Öland Bridge. The area around Kalmar has been inhabited since ancient times, excavations have found traces of stone age gravefields. The oldest evidence for there being a town are however from the 11th century, according to a medieval folk tale, the Norwegian king Saint Olav had his ships moved to Kalmar. The oldest city seal of Kalmar is from somewhere between 1255 and 1267, making it the oldest known city seal in Scandinavia, in the 12th century the first foundations of a castle were established, with the construction of a round tower for guard and lookout. Kalmars strategic location, near the Danish border, and its harbour and trade, also involved it in several feuds. In the 1540s, first King Gustav Vasa, and later his sons Erik XIV of Sweden, Kalmar became a diocese in 1603, a position it held until 1915. In 1634, Kalmar County was founded, with Kalmar as the natural capital, in 1660, the Kalmar Cathedral was begun by drawings of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. It would be inaugurated in 1703, in 1611–1613, it suffered in the Kalmar War, which began with a Danish siege of Kalmar Castle. 1611 is mentioned as the darkest year of Kalmars history, but by no means the only dark year, the last was during the Scanian War in the 1670s, so there have been 22 sieges altogether, however the castle was never taken. After the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, the importance of Kalmar gradually diminished as the borders were redrawn further south. In 1689, the King established his main naval base further south in Karlskrona, the new city of Kalmar built on Kvarnholmen around the mid-1600s. The transfer from the old town was largely completed 1658th The new, according to this pattern were placed church and town hall across from each other at a major square Stortorget Kalmar
4.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
5.
Castle chapel
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Castle chapels in European architecture are chapels that were built within a castle. They fulfill the requirements of the castle lord and his retinue. Because the construction of such church edifices was expensive for the lord of the castle, often, a secondary room furnished with an altar had to suffice. Castle chapels were consecrated to saints, especially those associated with knighthood. In 1437, the chapel of Saint Mark at the castle in Braubach, Germany, gave the castle its present name, the Marksburg. Frequently, castle chapels were located near the gate or in the upper storey of the tower as, for example. This was in order to claim Gods protection over the most vulnerable point in the castle, prominent examples are the double chapels at imperial castles and Kaiserpfalzen, for example the chapel of Nuremberg Castle. For services, the nobility were seated in their upper balconies, the design of the chapel stressed the differences in status. St Georges Chapel, Windsor Altenstein Castle Chapel Castle Chapel, Stargard Castle Barbara Schock-Werner, kolloquium des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Deutschen Burgenvereinigung. Andacht, Repräsentation und Wehrhaftigkeit im Mittelalter, gerhard Streich, Burg und Kirche während des deutschen Mittelalters. Untersuchungen zur Sakraltopographie von Pfalzen, Burgen und Herrensitzen, alexander Thon, Tina Rudersdorf, Burgkapelle, Kapellenerker und Tragaltar. Überlegungen zu einer Typologie des Sakralbereichs mittelalterlicher Burgen im Rheinland,25,1999, ISSN 0170-2025, pp. 141−181
6.
Magnus III of Sweden
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Magnus III was King of Sweden from 1275 until his death in 1290. He was the first Magnus to rule Sweden for any length of time, referring to Magnus Ladulås as Magnus I is an invention not recognized by any Swedish historians today. His father designated Magnus as his successor in powers of the Jarl, the elder brother, Valdemar, had become king succeeding their maternal uncle in 1250. In 1275, Duke Magnus started a rebellion against his brother with Danish help, Magnus was elected king at the Stones of Mora. In 1276, Magnus Barnlock allegedly married a second wife Helwig, through her mother, Elizabeth of Mecklenburg, Helwig was a descendant of Christina, the putative daughter of King Sverker II). A papal annulment of Magnus alleged first marriage and a dispensation for the second were issued ten years later, haelwig later acted as regent, probably 1290–1302 and 1320–1327. The deposed King Valdemar managed, with Danish help in turn, to provinces in Gothenland, the southern part of the kingdom. However, Magnus regained them about 1278 and assumed the title rex Gothorum, King of the Goths, starting the tradition of King of the Swedes. King Magnus youngest brother, Benedict, then archdeacon, acted as his Lord High Chancellor of Sweden and he died when his sons were yet underage. Magnus ordered his kinsman Thurchetel, the Lord High Constable of Sweden as the guardian of his heir, the future King Birger, SVT broadcast a presentation of the preliminary studies, where a number of results were presented, amongst others his sickly disposition. Carbon-14 tests dated the bones to the 15th century, indicating the remains could not be those of the king and his family. In December 2011, the applied for permission to open the neighbouring sarcophagus. From his alleged first marriage to a woman, Eric Magnusson From his second marriage to Helwig of Holstein, Ingiburga Magnusdotter of Sweden. Birger, King of Sweden Eric Magnuson, Duke of Sudermannia in 1302, died of starvation in 1318 at Nyköpingshus Castle while imprisoned by his brother King Birger. Waldemar Magnuson, Duke of Finland in 1302 and Öland 1310, died of starvation 1318 at Nyköpingshus Castle while imprisoned by his brother, King Birger. Richeza Magnusdotter of Sweden, Abbess of the convent of St. Clares Priory, Stockholm
7.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
8.
Scandinavia
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Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries
