Birkarls

This article is about a medieval Scandinavian association. For a contemporary Swedish society, see Birkarlarna (society).

Birkarls (birkarlar in Swedish, unhistorical pirkkamiehet or pirkkalaiset in Finnish; bircharlaboa, bergcharl etc. in historical sources) were a small Finnish group that controlled taxing and commerce in the modern-day area of northern Sweden during the 13th to 17th centuries, and possibly before as well.

Background

Professor Jouko Vahtola suggests the most probable assumption to be that the Birkarls were originally Finnish traders, mainly from historical Tavastia. King Magnus III Birgersson is traditionally claimed to have granted their privileges to control the trade and taxes in the north in the latter half of the 13th century, possibly just ratifying an already existing condition. The oldest known records written in Swedish mention the Birkarls (bircharlaboa) in c. 1328. The Birkarls are told to have inhabited areas in northern Hälsingland, which covered the western coast of the Gulf of Bothnia all the way up and around the gulf to Oulu River.

The origin of the name Birkarl is probably in an ancient Scandinavian word birk which has been used in reference to commerce in various contexts.

In the late 16th century, claims about the Birkarls originating from Great Pirkkala (a parish in northern Tavastia) emerged, propagated by the Birkarls themselves in their battle to prevent the state from stripping their privileges. This claim is at least partly true, since men from Pirkkala appear as witnesses in a document from 1374 about local borders in northern Pohjanmaa. Later in the 19th century a Finnish term pirkkamiehet or pirkkalaiset was invented as a "domestic" name for the Birkarls. The term is commonly used in Finland today in reference to Birkarls.

In total, some 20 theories are estimated to exist to explain the origin and name of the Birkarls.

Sami trade and tax monopoly

The main purpose of the Birkarl organization was to control the trade with the Sami people and to tax them. According to medieval accounts and some other evidence, the Sami were taxed by the Norsemen and the Finnic tribe of the ancient Kvens during the Viking Age, but presumably already before Viking Age as well. During Viking Age - and possibly long before -, the Finnic Karelians too participated in the taxing of the Sami.

By the mid-13th-century, both the slowly expanding Real of Sweden and Novgorod too had become interested in the taxing of the Sami in the north. Birkarls were at this point just one element in the colonial system taking benefit of the Sami area.

It seems that Birkarls' privileges were more de facto, than de jure. No document has survived granting them official right to the tax and trade monopoly in the north, even though the state first supported and later tolerated the situation for centuries.

In practice, a Birkarl owned the Sami people on his turf, and they were treated as if they were property. Privileges to own Sami people usually went in the family. Later, the Birkarl privileges became merchandise as well.

Area of influence

Birkarls were active in northern Scandinavia and Fennoscandia, but particularly on the western and northern coastal areas of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the final centuries of their activity, their influence was felt strongest in and around the Tornio, Luleå and Piteå river valleys, each of the valleys forming a separate area known as "Lappmark", with its own Birkarls. Sami people south of Piteå were the so-called "Crown Samis", who paid their taxes directly to the king. The area of Tornio is known as the most important center for the Birkarl activities in history.

Birkarls living on their area of influence were very few, totaling only about 50 men still in the early 16th century.

According to Professor Emeritus Kyösti Julku, there are at least 12 prehistoric Kven place names in the modern-day area of Troms in Northern Norway. In his 1539 map of Scandinavia named Carta Marina, Olaus Magnus marks Birkarl Kvens ("Berkara Qvenar") inhabiting the area roughly between the modern-day city of Tromsø and the archipelago of Lofoten in Norway. The first ever recorded Norwegian tax records from the mid-1500s onward also mention Kvens, suggesting the presence of the Birkarls in Norway at the time. These tax records are stored at the National Archival Services of Norway (Riksarkivet). Carta Marina

In the east, the Kemi River Valley was at least partly under the influence of the Birkarls still in the late 16th century.

Decline and end

Birkarls remained powerful operators in north as long as the Swedish state's hold there was weak. After the disintegration of the Union of Kalmar in the early 16th century, the status of the Birkarls gradually changed. A major setback for the Birkals took place in 1553, when King Gustav Vasa terminated their right to tax the Sami people.

Birkarls' trade monopoly was now turned to gradual decline, and from 1570s onward it was seriously set in the line of fire. Unable to continue their former lives as usual, many Birkarls became local tax authorities (lapinvouti in Finnish). However, still in the 1590s the Birkarls tried to hold on to - or regain - tax control of the Sea Sami people on the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean.

The state of Sweden now wanted to concentrate the trade in the north into towns which were easy to control. This soon made the former role of the Birkarls obsolete. Having no official status, the Birkarl organization had little means to fight back, and it silently eroded away in the 17th century, after administrative changes initiated by King Charles IX.

In 1607, once King Charles IX had strengthened his hold on the crown of Sweden, he appended to it the title 'King of the Caijaners' (people of Kainuu), apparently using the title the first time on March 16, 1607. However, Kainuu (same as Kvenland, according to Kyösti Julku) "occupied a separate position from the rest of Finland for a long time to come".

Tornio, Luleå and Piteå all received their town charters in 1621, marking an official end to the influence of the Birkarls in all of northern Scandinavia and Finland.

Kven theory

The ancient Kven people and their land called Kvenland are discussed in the c. 890 AD Old English version by King Alfred of Wessex of the world history written originally by the Romano-Hispanic author Orosius. Also medieval Icelandic accounts written in the 12th and 13th centuries discuss the Kvens and their nation called Kvenland, which was ruled by kings.

It is often speculated that what became known as Birkarls would in fact have been post-Viking-Age upper class members of the Kven society discussed in medieval accounts. According to this assumption, the area where the Birkarls operated, would have located in the heartland of the ancient Kvenland.

As a name for a country, Kvenland seems to have gone out of ordinary usage around the end of the Viking Age, unrecognized by scholars by the 14th century. As the first ever account written in Swedish language, Eric's Chronicle, was published as late as the 14th century, no medieval references to "Kvenland" or "Kvens" are available from Swedish literature.

However, in his 1539 map Carta Marina, Swedish author Olaus Magnus places Birkarl Kvens ("Berkara Qvenar") on the Norwegian North Atlantic cost, roughly in the middle in between the archipelago of Lofoten and the modern-day city of Tromsø. In his 1555 publication Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus ("A Description of the Northern Peoples") Magnus also mentions both terms: The Finnish traders that commuted between and inhabited the general area of Tornio and the modern-day area of Norway are told to have been called "Kvens".

Historians consider it likely, that for the medieval inhabitants of the modern-day area of Norway the term Kven included Birkarl traders. Whatever the case, most of the Kven minority in the present-day northern Norway originates from - or has immigrated from - the same area on which Birkarls were active.