Finland-msg - 9/25/98 History and culture of Finland. NOTE: See also the files: Finland-hist-art, Norse-msg, Norway-msg, pst-Vik-Norse-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: marten at rieska.oulu.fi (Lady Dark) Date: 17 Jul 91 18:35:18 GMT Organization: University of Oulu, Finland Unto the gentle who asked about finnish costume (I'm sorry I can't find your posting anywhere from my files so I'll put this to the rialto). It is surprising how few books in english there are of this subject. From the index I have, I could find only this one (but at least in Finland the author is very respected in this area of study) Lehtosalo-Hilander, P.-L., 1984a: Ancient Finnish Costumes. Published by Suomen Arkeologinen Seura. Vammala. There are, however, quite a few sources in Swedish, several in German and lots (surpriese, surprise..:) in Finnish. If you think that any of these would be helpful, please drop me a note and I'll mail the sources to you. LapC (=Llwyd ap Cadwaladr) ======================================================================== # At office: Atte Kinnula # In the Current Middle Ages: # # Rakentajantie 5 F/303 # Llwyd ap Cadwaladr # # 90570 OULU, FINLAND # (now try pronouncing that >;)# From: Antti Leino Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Finland in the Middle Ages? Date: 23 Aug 1995 15:19:56 GMT Organization: Wallace & Gromit Fan Club Lord Christian wrote: >Does anyone know what was going on in Finland in the fifteenth >century? I would like a persona from around that time and place >but cant find any info about life in the middle ages there. >I heard there so a King Christian, thats why I was interested. Briefly, Finland was a part of the Kalmar Union (which was, in effect, Denmark, Sweden and Norway in personal union), like the rest of Scandinavia. Technically it was a Swedish province, but it had considerably more freedom under the Union kings than during the rest of the Swedish rule. One of the reasons was that Bishop Magnus of Turku (the see encompassed the whole Finland, until mid-16th century) was a rather important figure in politics during the early half of the century; another important reason was that the Danish Union kings were a lot more distant than the Swedish ones. As to the information, I can't really guess what is available in English. All in all, you can rather safely change Finland for Sweden; the differences were not all that big (except, of course, for the language). Just keep in mind that Finland was something of a semi-independent back-country province. Feel free to ask me, too. If you send me personal mail, I'll probably even notice (I've been on the Rialto rather sporadically for the last couple of years). -- Pietari Pentinpoika Uv Antti.Leino at Helsinki.FI Barony of Aarnimetsa, Kingdom of Drachenwald Another 15th-century Finn, and a herald. From: HNHN15A at prodigy.com (Jana Russ) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Finland in the Middle Ages Date: 27 Aug 1995 16:48:26 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY jdw at cris.com (DRONE) wrote: > >Does anyone know what was going on in Finland in the fifteenth >century? I would like a persona from around that time and place >but cant find any info about life in the middle ages there. >I heard there so a King Christian, thats why I was interested. > >Thanks, >Lord Christian >jdw at cris.com The country we call Finland is actually called Suomi by its own people. In the Middle Ages it was not an independant nation, but rather a duchy of the Swedish crown. (Finland has been a land contested over by the Swedes and the Russians since the twelfth century...) The King Christian you refer to may have been one of 2 Scandinavian Kings by that name. Christian I became king of "the Scandinavian Union" (Sweden, all the fiefs of Finland except for Viipuri Province, Norway, sometimes Estonia, & Denmark) in 1457 and immediately sent troops into Finland to force them to acknowledge him. While they did submit, and even furnished up to 1/3rd of Sweden's fighting forces for years to come, the Finns had a habit of not paying their taxes and of disappearing into the forests when the tax collectors showed up (it's a *Sisu* thing ). Eventually the Swedish Crown declared they would only tax "arable lands" and then declared Finland "unarable" (this saved them the embarrassment of trying to subdue a people who continually refused to acknowledge the blow...) Christian II of Denmark became king of the Union in 1520 and was mostly known for the bloodbath by which he took Stockholm. The Finns resisted him, but lost due to the treachery of the prelate Hemming Gadh. Many Finnish nobles went to the headsmans block. The Danish yoke was thrown off in 1523, by the Swedish King Gustavus Vasa. Neither of these Christians is considered "popular" by the Finns. And the name Christian is more commonly considered a Swedish name, not common among Midieval Finns. I recommend 2 books: _The History Of Finland_, by Eino Jutikkala (trans. by Paul Sjoblom), Thames and Hudson, London, 1962. _Of Finnish Ways_, by Aini Rajanen, Barnes and Noble, NY, 1984. ISBN 0-06- 464077. Another source to look for is the _Kalevala_ , a collection of the oral traditions and Finnish folk myths that was set down as *epic poetry in the ancient style* by Elias Lonnrot in the early 1800's. It is considered today to be a national epic of the Suomi people. Good luck in your research. nakemiin! Gwynhyvar (in the SCA a good Welsh girl who just happens to be mundanely of Finnish descent, full of sisu, and had Finnish history spoon fed to her from the cradle on....) From: cjcannon at ucdavis.EDU (Carol Cannon) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Viking clothing info. (fwd) Date: 31 Aug 1995 18:37:38 -0400 Organization: The Internet Forwarded from Historical Costuming List: Have you read "Sarks, suomalaisia muinaispukuja (Ancient Finnish Costume) by Pirkko-Lehtosalo-Hilander, published by the Finnish Archeological Society, 1984? It covers Finnish grave finds to about AD 600 to the 13th C, with most of the information from the 11th, 12th & 13th C's. The text covers the actual finds of textiles & jewelry, interpetations & reproductions made from them, basic structure of costumes in Northern Europe, Pan-European trend of fashion, etc. Most of the clothing shown is for women. Edited by Mark S. Harris Finland-msg Page 4 of 4