SWEDES, GOTHS AND VANDALS

One of the most celebrated events in the history of papal Rome was the 1654 abdication and conversion of Christina Alexandra, queen of Sweden. Arriving in Rome in 1655, Christina was received with great fanfare by Pope Alexander VII. The following year she made a ceremonial visit to the Capitol; the visit is commemorated in an inscription mounted in Palazzo dei Conservatori (Latin Inscriptions of Rome, 1.6I). In the inscription, Christina is styled ‘Queen of the Swedes, Goths and Vandals’ (Suecorum, Gotthorum et Vandalorum regina). The Swedes (Sueci) are of course unproblematic; my question was in what sense Christina was the queen of the Goths or Vandals.

In attempting to sort out the reference to Goths and Vandals, I began with the peoples of those names who figure in the history of the late Roman Empire. The historian Jordanes (sixth century) reports that the Goths originated on the island of Scandza (i.e., Scandia, or Scandinavia). Because the oldest attested ethnonym for the Goths (Guton-) is based on the same root as that of the Gotlanders (Gutar), some scholars have regarded the island of Gotland as the homeland of the Goths. Since Gotland had passed to the Swedish crown by the Treaty of Brömsebro in 1645 – just a decade before Christina's abdication – I inferred that the title ‘Queen of the Goths’ referred to that acquisition. As for the Vandals, toponyms such as Vendel (in Sweden) and Vendsyssel (in Denmark) have led scholars to hypothesize a Scandinavian homeland in their case as well. In the seventeenth century, I reasoned, when classical learning enjoyed such prestige, a monarch might well lend luster to her title by claiming sovereignty over peoples who had inhabited her territories in the days of Caesar and Tacitus.

It turns out, however, that the references are somewhat more concrete. The ancient core of the kingdom of Sweden is in the eastern part of what is today Svealand. By the late fourteenth century, the kingdom had grown to comprise Swerige (i.e., Svealand), Österland (i.e., Finland) and Göthaland (i.e., Götaland, the southernmost region of the peninsula). It is the inhabitants of the latter – known in English as ‘Geats’ – to which the inscription refers as Gotthi (Beowulf was a Geat). As for the Vandals, these are in English the ‘Wends’ – Slavs living in Wendland (Pomerania) on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. The historic Swedish claim of sovereignty over that region was reflected in the mention of ‘Vandals’ in the Swedish royal title. The title was current from the 1540s until 1973, when Carl XVI Gustaf preferred to be crowned simply as ‘King of Sweden’ (Sveriges Konung). In a similar case, the claim of the British monarchs to sovereignty over France was not formally abandoned until 1801.

In view of these facts, Christina's title could as well be rendered: ‘Queen of the Swedes, Geats and Wends’.