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Anna of Sweden

1545–1610

Born
19 Jun 1545, Stockholm
Country of birth
Sweden
Died
20 Mar 1610
facts
8
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Stockholm

    Birth, Stockholm

  2. Died

    Death

What was it like?

The world around Stockholm, 1545: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Peasants often carried essential daily tools like knives and leather pouches on belts; women additionally kept the keys to their farm on their belts.

Known for

Titles held

  • regent
Fashion

Essential Tools Carried on Belts

Peasants often carried essential daily tools like knives and leather pouches on belts; women additionally kept the keys to their farm on their belts.

Marital Status Shown by Headwear

To signal their status, married women wore a wimple as a head covering, whereas unmarried young girls were distinguished by wearing their hair uncovered.

Music

Chanting in the Swedish Mass

During the Reformation, priests began chanting the Mass in the Swedish vernacular instead of Latin. Congregations started to participate in ritual singing, using hymnals like Een liten song-book, which was published in both large and smaller formats.

Popular instruments of the time

Common instruments included the flute, drum, fiddle, and jaw harp. Bagpipes were also popular, though they were sometimes depicted in church art as sinful or associated with the devil.

Getting around

Costs and customs of travel accommodation

Travelers could obtain food and shelter from appointed hosts in parishes roughly two Swedish miles apart for a cost of two 'Rondstuckh' (about four Kreuzer) per meal. However, foreign travelers were often charged double and had to rely on the willingness of the local host to provide transport.

Travel by foot, horse, and winter sledge

In the 16th century, common modes of transport included walking, traveling on horseback, or using sledges in winter, with water routes often preferred over land for their speed. A day's journey could cover 30–40 km on foot, 50 km on horseback, or 70–80 km by sledge during winter.

Daily life

Children learned skills through work at age 7

Children typically began participating in daily chores at age 7 or 8 to learn necessary life skills, as formal schooling was not a standard feature of daily life for ordinary families.

Cramped shared living spaces with livestock

Most rural homes were single-room cottages serving as both kitchen and bedroom, where families often lived in cramped conditions alongside livestock like calves, sheep, and pigs during winter.

Food

Beaver as fasting food

To preserve food for winter, people salted or dried meat and fish, and the beaver was considered fish because it lived in water and used its tail to swim. This allowed it to be eaten during the religious fasting days when meat was otherwise prohibited.

Beer as a primary daily beverage

Water was often avoided due to quality concerns, so people frequently drank large quantities of beer, including warm spiced beer known as bragott. In some religious institutions, nuns were served as much as 1.3 liters of beer with their dinner.

Prices and wages

Price of bread and meat in Ångermanland

In Ångermanland, a single loaf of bread was valued at 2 öre, while 1 liter of meat cost 24 öre.

Value of clothing items

Stolen trousers were valued at 6 or 8 öre, reflecting the high cost of clothing items in the 16th century.

Work

Common jobs included farmhands and cottagers

Most ordinary people worked as agricultural laborers, often as cottagers or as annual servants known as dräng (farmhand) and piga (maid). Cottagers frequently supplemented their income with specialized work like tar production, charcoal making, and construction.

Long workdays with many religious holidays

Workdays were long and demanding, centered around sunrise to sunset, with meals like porridge, bread, and beer punctuating the labor. Before the late 16th century, the year included around 60 religious holidays, which provided mandatory rest periods from regular work.

News and letters

Informal methods for sending letters

Before an organized post system, letters were sent by ad hoc messengers, acquaintances traveling, or merchants who happened to be going in the right direction.

Oral communication by messengers

Messengers were often illiterate and relied on the sender's oral instructions to supplement or explain the contents of the letters they carried.

During their lifetime

  1. 1563

    Devastation from the Northern Seven Years' War

    The Northern Seven Years' War caused widespread devastation, with farms plundered and rural populations forced to flee to towns.

  2. 1571

    Mandatory elementary schooling introduced for city children

    The Swedish Church Ordinance was established, mandating elementary schooling for all children in cities, regardless of sex.

  3. 1593

    Lutheranism established as the state religion

    The Uppsala Synod affirmed the Evangelical Lutheran faith as the state religion, solidifying Sweden's break from the Catholic Church.

  4. 1596

    Crop failures caused widespread hardship

    General crop failures caused by severe weather led to widespread hardship and peasant unrest in Finland.

Family

Parents

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.