SWEDEN: THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SETTING SWEDEN: THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SETTING*

January 29, according to the old style Julian calendar in use at that time. He was the third child and second son of Jesper Swedberg (1653–1735) and Sarah Behm (1666–1696). At the time of his birth, his father was a Lutheran priest and Chaplain to the Life Guard Regiment of the king, Karl XI (reigned 1672–1697), as well as a Chaplain to the Court. His status as a priest offered him the possibility of participating in the Priestly Estate of the riksdag, the national assembly. The other three Estates were the Nobil-ity, the Burghers, and the Peasants. All the Estates were free subjects of the crown. Swedberg came from a successful mining family in the Swedish heartland of Dalarna, a region of special importance to Sweden because it had been home to King Gustav Vasa (reigned 1523–1560) the leader of Swedish independence and founder of the nation. His mother came from a family of wealthy mine owners near Gafle in the region of Gästrikland, who were descendents of the legendary Vasa line. Her father, Albrecht (died 1679), had been an Assessor at the Royal College of Mines in Stockholm for several years before his death. * Dr. Williams-Hogan would like to thank the research committee of the Academy of the New Church for the grant that made writing this chapter/article possible. † Dr. Jane Williams-Hogan teaches at Bryn Athyn College. She continues to pursue an understanding of Emanuel Swedenborg, his life and his times, and enjoys sharing what she knows with the student of the college and the Master of Religious Studies program. She hopes to complete her biography of Emanuel Swedenborg this year. This article is background material for a chapter in the biography. She has recently (2008) published an article titled “The Place of Emanuel Swedenborg in the Spiritual Saga of Scandinavia ” in the proceedings of a Donner Institute Conference held in Finland. She has an article titled “History and Revelation” in a festschrift for George Dole to be published in 2009, and is on the planning committee fo